Power steering flush with power bleeder

[steffenme1]

So late last year I did the rod bearings on my MCoupe, where I also found the power steering loop to be leaking. No biggie, it's not a cheap part but it's an easy repair. However once buttoning the car back up I noticed that the power steering fluid was cloudy and a bit gray, not awful but enough to annoy me. I'm guessing that there was some manufacturing 'gunk' in my new hose and it found it's way inside the system, the issue of course was getting it all out.



I've never seen a good way to bleed/flush the power steering system. I know it's not usually necessary and most will just bulb out the reservoir but my situation was a bit different, so here's what I did.

First up, I bought a sacrificial cap, drilled a hole in it, and voila!



Hooked up to my little power bleeder.





I disconnected the hose at the pump itself, you have to replace the crush washers but it seemed like the best place to do this from. You can see I also wrapped my cooling lines, swaybar, etc with foil to try and keep the ATF off of everything, it was only mildly successful. The string is just there to help give the ATF something to flow down and helps to keep things tidy.



Then I just gave the bleeder a few pumps, cranked the wheel like a maniac a few times, repeat until nothing else came out.

I ended up getting another 4 ounces out of it using the bleeder, which isn't a ton but still made me feel better to have all of the old gunk out. (My fluid wasn't nearly this awful looking, it picked up some crap in my catch pan)



I then filled the reservoir with clean ATF and flushed until no more came out, repeated once more, then filled, pressurized, and sealed, while bleeding. Other than waiting for the part to arrive and making my garage stink of ATF it was a simple repair and the whole thing took 30ish minutes. Well worth the peace of mind.



(obligatory: Mods move this wherever you need to note )

[garz747]

Clever method- considering where its located! I couldnt even find the reservoir to check it when I got my coupe 2 years ago.

[SaltyNC]

I like it. Cool idea.

Salty

[XMetal]

Isn't there a vent hole in the reservoir cap? How did you build pressure with the vent hole unplugged?

[steffenme1]

Originally Posted by XMetal

Isn't there a vent hole in the reservoir cap? How did you build pressure with the vent hole unplugged?

There absolutely is, and I had figured I'd have to fill it with epoxy or something, but the brass fitting ended up plugging it.

Also, there was very little pressure, not even enough to move the gauge on the bleeder. Because the system is open it pretty much just pushed the fluid out as quickly as I pumped.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by garz747

Clever method- considering where its located! I couldnt even find the reservoir to check it when I got my coupe 2 years ago.

I've yet to find mine on my 3.0si Coupe

OP, you Sir are an innovator.