Power steering line question

91_SC_BIRD

Registered User
One of the power steering lines on my car just blew for no reason, It looks like its the one coming from the top of the rack on the passenger side. Someone told me thats the return line, I just want to make sure I get the right one.

Thanks!
 
Probably the high pressure line which runs under the oil pan as seen in this picture.
cross%20member.jpg
 
Mike8675309 said:
Probably the high pressure line which runs under the oil pan as seen in this picture.

Thats a good picture!! Makes a lot of sence, someone told me that if it was the return, it would just drip, mine was porring... I ordered the high pressure line.

I know I'll have to take out the driver side Access bracket, but do I need to
take the pump off the bracket?

Thanks
 
It's a bastard to get at. You may want to search as I think there are a few threads on removing that line.
 
Mike8675309 said:
It's a bastard to get at. You may want to search as I think there are a few threads on removing that line.
It is a pain to remove. If you do what mike did and remove the engine, its not so bad though. :rolleyes: Really though, its doable if you remove the driver side alt bracket and then the engine mount through bolt and then jack up the engine slightly. All in all, that's not so bad. :rolleyes:

BTW, thats a fake SC picture.. the way you can tell is by how clean it looks. Real SC frames are covered in a layer of grimey gritty oil. :cool:
 
That's a picture sent to me by someone when I asked once a long time ago. My 93 will be that clean before I paint it.

When I changed the motor mounts on my 89 I also fixed a leak at the high pressure line connection. With the engine in the car, I had removed the accessory bracket and everything attached to do the motor mounts. Getting at that line was a pain because there wasn't a good way to get a wrench on it from the bottom, so you have to do it from the top. From the top you have to bend way down into the engine bay to get at it. then you can only move the wrench so far. So you just go a little at a time, with breaking it loose initially being the hard part.

And with me at about 5'11", leaning down into the engine compartment for 20 minutes turning the wrench a little at a time caused a tad bit of back pain.
 
Mike8675309 said:
And with me at about 5'11", leaning down into the engine compartment for 20 minutes turning the wrench a little at a time caused a tad bit of back pain.
With me at 5'7", its a pain as well. I pulled my rack to replace a tie-rod end about 2 weeks ago. The metal connector in your picture was a relative cake-walk.. the real butt kicker was that return line with the clamp on it that should have just pulled off. The hose was soooooo stiff after the years that after about hour of twisting, pulling, grunting, WD40 spraying, and head shaking in disbelief :( , I finally got it off. :) Picture me leaning over in the compartment feet off the ground with 2 hands firmly holding a pair of pliers clamped onto the hose and twisting and pulling with all my might giving the weight lifters grunt.. that was good enough to get it to move about 1/8th inch. :(

OK, so I think this'll go on easy.. nope.. it was just as hard reinstalling it as it was to take it off.

In retrospect, I should have just cut it off and spliced in a new hose piece.
 
You might want to check out your engine mounts while you are under there. They are the number one cause of premature wear and leaks on the high pressure line.
 
Kevin Varnes said:
You might want to check out your engine mounts while you are under there. They are the number one cause of premature wear and leaks on the high pressure line.

I already have solid mounts, but the liquid ones were very bad when i replaced them a while back, it must of put some wear in them back then... Well I picked up the part, and I'm going to get at it! How long did it take you guys, I'm gessing it will take me around 4-5 hours?

Thanks!
 
All day. You'll be pulling enough things off with that bracket that you'll find all sorts of things you'll want to do before you put it back together. I.e. the oil pressure sender is real close there and it might be a good time to swap that out for one that actually measures pressure.

If you've still got that bracket that goes from the water pump to the p/s pump bracket go ahead and throw that away when you reinstall. That'll make any future work easier.

you can bleed the P/s system by hand, at least to start after you get things bolted back up. Have someone help keep the resevoir full as you turn the pulley with your hand until you get flow from the return line. Then put the car up on jackstands once done and turn the wheels from left to right repeatedly until you feel like all the air is out.
 
Mike8675309 said:
All day. You'll be pulling enough things off with that bracket that you'll find all sorts of things you'll want to do before you put it back together. I.e. the oil pressure sender is real close there and it might be a good time to swap that out for one that actually measures pressure.

If you've still got that bracket that goes from the water pump to the p/s pump bracket go ahead and throw that away when you reinstall. That'll make any future work easier.

you can bleed the P/s system by hand, at least to start after you get things bolted back up. Have someone help keep the resevoir full as you turn the pulley with your hand until you get flow from the return line. Then put the car up on jackstands once done and turn the wheels from left to right repeatedly until you feel like all the air is out.

Since I had already swapped the engine, the useless junk ie: bracket from water pump to p/s was already gone. I started by removing the Upper I/C tube, then the IC, then the accessory bracket, (without removing the powersteering pump or anything). I also unbolted the lower I/C tube(so I could move it out of the way to get more space to do the bottom connection on the hose. That wasn't sooo bad, then did the side on the P/S pump. again not so bad, pulled the old line out (coming out through driver side of the engine). Now the hard part, putting the damn thing back in!! I gave up for tonight. I think my best bet is taking out the filter, I just didn't feel like it. After I can put the line in, its just connecting the hose on both ends, and reassembling a few things, and voila! Wasn't as bad as I thought it would!
 
Yeah, pull the oil filter. Gives you a ton more room to work with. Sounds like things are going pretty good.

I highly recommend bleeding that system by hand before firing it up. With the pump spinning faster it tends to aerate the fluid taking longer to get the air out.
 
Also be real carefull screwing that sucker into the rack I cross threaded mine when I did it and !@&^$*&!:mad:
 
Well I'm just about ready to cry, I hooked everything up. It fired right up, and made a big mess of power steering fluid :mad: Arghh... i'm at a loss. If it was summer time, where it would be nice and warm, no problem. Its -11C or 12 degrees so its no fun!! Is there alot of pressure in the return line as well? Well, I'll add more fluid tomorrow after work, then get someone to fire it up, and try to find where its coming from. Well atleast I have a new high pressure line :rolleyes: lol.
 
There is a plastic washer in that high pressure fitting in Mike's picture. What I did was with mine was wrap the threads with about 2 layers of teflon tape and very carefully line up the threads and reconnect it. No leaks. There's only really 2 places were it can leak: pump outlet line and that fitting. Hopefully, for you it was the HP line to begin with. :rolleyes:
 
TbirdSCFan said:
There is a plastic washer in that high pressure fitting in Mike's picture. What I did was with mine was wrap the threads with about 2 layers of teflon tape and very carefully line up the threads and reconnect it. No leaks. There's only really 2 places were it can leak: pump outlet line and that fitting. Hopefully, for you it was the HP line to begin with. :rolleyes:

Well, I'm thinking its a different line, since it is leaking the same way it was before.... I'm going to put more fluid in it, jack the car, get under it and get someone to fire it up so I can see. I don't want to run it too long, I wouldn't want to burn the pump!!
 
Does anyone have some sort of diagram of the whole powersteering system... I took a look at it again tonight. I'm assuming that the 2 lines that run infront of the K-Member one above the other are the lines going to the PS cooler, it would seem that one of those 2 lines are leaking, I see that one line is just clamped on both ends (one end on the bottom of the ps pump), where does the other one go?

Thanks
 
I think the flow goes something like this: pump to HP line.. HP line to steering rack neck.. rack neck return to cooler inlet (pass side).. cooler outlet to pump intake. Everything past the neck should be a low pressure line, although parts of it are made of steel.

The 2 steel lines under the rack itself connect the outlet port on the neck to the piston. Nothing short of faulty installation or running over something should cause them to leak. The steering gear neck sits up behind the K member, so you can't really see or reach any part of it with the rack on the car.

I'd clean up everything as good as you can with degreaser, let it dry and then look for the leak. This is the only way I found my oil sender leak years back. :)
 
:D I found the leak! It's the hose coming from the rack, going to the metal line in front of the k-member going towards the cooler! It doesn't seem all that hard to change... the only thing is that on the end thats going to the cooler, its not just a hose clamp like the hose coming back from the cooler...
 
Same thing plus a new problem...

We're just replacing that hose, and we're using a Dremel with thin abrasive cut-off blade to slice off the crimping ferrule on the cooler end of the hose. Underneath it is a regular barbed fitting (we hope) and we can use a regular worm clamp. The end of the hose on the rack is a real pain to get off, just cut it once the clamp is out of the way. As previously described, though, you've really got to have the intercooler tube out of there or you'll never get it!

My problem right now: Had to pull the PS pump pulley off because of that damned bracket to the water pump (blocked access to the nut on the accessory bracket behind it). Used the AutoZone tool to remove the pulley, worked great. Now I find that the PS pump doesn't have threads inside its shaft for the tool to press it back on -- it's a hex socket!!! I'm assuming I have to heat the pulley enough to just slide it on?!?! I've never see one like that!
 
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