Well i bought this car a year ago and now started leaking power steering fluid and notice its murky and beige and looks like its coming out from the cap. Not sure if thats the way its tells you its going out im a noob. the car has 140,000 miles on it. its also making loud squeaking noises when turning. should i go ahead and replace it or just flush it?

 

sounds like you powersteering cooler is shot and is mixing coolant with the power steering, you will have to replace the cooler and then flush the coolant and steering system, i wouldnt be suprised if you have to replace the pump as well.

 

Just flush the system, get rid of the factory power steering cooler....then for $40 and 30 minutes of your time you can put an aftermarket power steering cooler on that ACTUALLY is a cooler. The factory cooler you have there is a HUGE PILE-O-****, it heats the fluid, it does not cool it. Terrible design by the ***** at GM.

My power steering pump is my original 12 year old pump....they live longer if they stay cooler. Use the aftermarket cooler.......

Here's what the aftermarket set-up looks like.....it only gets warm to the touch. The factory cooler will fry the skin off your hand if you ever pull over and touch it.

You also MUST flush your cooling system like you never have before. It takes about 30 minutes of constant flushing to get all the power steering fluid out of the block.
Here's how I do it:

Best/easiest way to flush and get every drop of old coolant out.

-Cold engine.
-Remove radiator fill cap.
-Remove the t-stat from the housing. Leave the housing attached to the rubber radiator hose, just remove the 2 housing bolts and pull it away from the water to pump to get to the t-stat. (2-3 minute job).
-Put t-stat housing back on. (1 minute) Just put one bolt in, no need to put them both in, there’s no pressure in the system during the flush.
-Take the entire radiator drain valve (petcock) "off" and let it drain, don't just open the valve itself. It'll drain faster with it off and that’s what you want. ((Buy a new petcock valve before starting this flush process, sometimes they break when you remove them all the way just because they're cheap plastic and they get briddle over time, they're like $2.00))
-Take a hose and stick it in the radiator fill cap, running medium to high.
-Start the engine.
-Turn heat on full blast
-Let it run for about 15-20 minutes or until the water is running out the drain CLEAR.
-((If you want to, you can wait till it runs clear, close the drain valve, add a bottle of radiator flush and let it run for 15 minutes, then drain it all again. Then open the drain and put the hose in for about 5 minutes run it all out till its CLEAR. The flush chemical will help break up the crap thats stuck DEEP in there.))
-When it runs clear your entire system is clean.
-Remove the overflow reservoir from the car and clean it out real good. (I had to use gasoline to clean mine out because the sludge and grime was so thick inside. The gas broke it all down and then it flushed right out. I filled it about 1/3 up with gasoline and shook the hell out of it real vigorously, the black stuff kept coming out. I did that like 4 seperate times with gasoline till no more chunks of black crap came out. Make sure the lines that go to the reservoir are also cleaned out. My sludge came from my power steering fluid leaking into my coolant system.)
-Put the t-stat back in.
-Put the overflow reservoir back in.
-Put the drain valve back in. Use the new one, what the hell.
-Put half a jug of Dexcool in the radiator. (Or if you live in very cold places, 1 to 1 ½ jugs of Dexcool)
-Fill the rest with water.
you do not need to use distilled water, clean hose water is just fine, just make sure your city water is clean and not total crap quality.

**Bleeding the system of air:
Start it up and let it run and warm up till the t-stat opens. I rapidly squeeze the upper radiator hose like 20 times while its warming up to help move any air bubbles through the system and by the t-stat on the engine side. You’ll see the level drop as you squeeze it, its sucking the coolant through the system. You wioll soon see the coolant start to flow in the radiator fill neck, once it starts to flow the level should drop down alot, immediately top it off with coolant/water. Then the flow will stop. Wait one more time for the t-stat to open again and start to flow, if it drops down again top it off again. Do it a 3rd time if you want to make sure. I always massage the upper hose during the whole process to keep any air bubbles moving through. Always works like a charm. Just keep checking your temp gauge until the t-stat opens for the first time to make sure it’s not sitting there overheating from a trapped bubble. May take 10-15 minutes for the t-stat to open the first time.
If you do start to get hot while sitting there and the t-stat will not open…..you have an air bubble on the engine side of the t-stat. Shut the engine off and rapidly squeeze the upper and lower radiator hoses again. Then start the engine again and see if the t-stat will open. Sometimes you just have to work those hoses to move the air through. Even after it seems topped off after a couple cycles…check it the next time you have a cold engine…top off if needed.


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buy a radiator hose without the PS cooler option, 30$ and bypass the cooler, don't need an external one either, then flush flush flush.

 

yes either remove it completely or follow ls6427's method if you still want to run a cooler... there were plenty of v8 f-body's that came without a factory ps cooler, mine being one of them, so i don't think you really need it anyway

 

True, its uneccessary for a regular street car. I may be wrong...but I think when they put the factory PS fluid coolers on the WS6's and I guess all or some of the SS's, not sure exactly how they chose which cars got them........but I think they figured people would auto-cross with them and in that case the factory cooler might be beneficial because from what I've read and been told....PS fluid can get near 300 degrees during a road race. Not sure if thats accurate.

But my thinking is....the cooler the better, for any mechanical parts especially those with fluids, they will last longer and perform better the cooler they are.

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[quote=LS6427;13356453]True, its uneccessary for a regular street car. I may be wrong...but I think when they put the factory PS fluid coolers on the WS6's and I guess all or some of the SS's, not sure exactly how they chose which cars got them......../quote]

Here's a really good article that gives insight as to the purpose of the cooler: http://www.gmhightechperformance.com...all/index.html

According to the article, cooling is needed to keep the steering pump from burning out, particularly for normal street cars.

 

I got 265,000 miles out of my p/s pump on my 94 v-6 Bird. The rack was leaking and I let the pump run low of fluid a few times and that is what caused the pump to go bad.

 

alright i went and bought the aftermarket cooler and they actually had one at autozone for $20 and its a universal ps cooler and comes with the zipties and hoses. Going to install it tomarow and flush both systems thanks a lot for the step by step info ls6427 its really helpfull and answered all my questions and thanks to everybody else for their input.