Thanks CirrusSR22, I fixed my power steering fluid leak following your advices with little changes for my exact situation. Here are my 2 cents:
- Instead of changing the hoses, I cut about 5/8" to 3/4" from them. I've noticed the hoses are still flexible and seem in good condition, so did not make sense to change them. Only the hose section under both clamps was harder and on the supply hose even a little bit cracked, so I shortened them. Be carefull if you shorten them too much they may become too shorth.
- The original clamps were loose, probably because the rubber under them get smashed and not so elastic after all these years. You need special tool to work with these original clamps, so I used new worm style tightening clamps. Make sure you get the right size- even though the big ones can get squized to small diametar if the worm screw housing is too big they are not going to clamp the hose evenly. Also, in general these of the shelf clamps are poor quality, so check them for sharp edges along the contact surface with the hose- if so break the edges with a file.
- I kept my original power steering fluid reservoir. I took it out, cleaned it and cerfully check it out for any crack, etc.- it looks as new. Probably is good to change it at least because of the integrated filter in it, anyway I had to special order it and I didn't want to wait, so did not change it.
At the end the whole repair cost me about 2 hours and $10 (1 gallon ATF and both clamps). Hope you are not gonna label me as a miser. I just couldn't justify spending about $100 for new parts and replacing perfectly usable ones. My car is '95 ti, has 237 k miles, but is really pampered and in great condition. Always been in California, never been at freezing temps or driven on winter roads with salty antiicing solution, etc, etc., so probably that is why all these parts were O.K. |