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Power Steering Cooling Success
07-28-2011, 10:47 PM
#105
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I have read this thread in depth and will do the delete and new cooler when I re do my WP, the one I got from AZ has a bad pulley on it.... out of balance and has a small vibration off idle... I will get a free replacement but I really am worried about getting another POS from them..
07-28-2011, 11:03 PM
#106
I have read this thread in depth and will do the delete and new cooler when I re do my WP, the one I got from AZ has a bad pulley on it.... out of balance and has a small vibration off idle... I will get a free replacement but I really am worried about getting another POS from them..
.
07-29-2011, 01:20 PM
#108
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I completed this mod last weekend.
My power steering fluid had been mixing with coolant for who knows how long. The fluid I originally removed was a reddish-brown color, was very watery (not nearly as viscous as fresh PSF) and had a burned smell to it. My PS cooler must have been dead for a long time. It took an entire gallon of fresh fluid and flushing the system seven times before the fluid was clear again - and it still wasn't perfectly clear when I quit flushing, but I was almost out of fluid at that point. I'll flush it again in the next few months just for good measure.
It seems the pump survived the prolonged exposure to the contaminated fluid. So... bonus.
After an hour of flushing, in went the new cooler, a Hayden 402 obtained from Amazon.com for $28 to my door. It only took ten minutes to install the cooler.
The zip ties use existing body holes to mount the cooler, and I only used two of the four ties provided. I used some heavy-duty rubber washers slipped between the cooler and the car body. This created about 1/2" gap between the car's frame and the cooler itself (to isolate noise/vibration transmitted from the pump, and to allow cool air to both sides of the cooler). Then I bent the rack-to-cooler line slightly to create a little better angle to re-route the existing line to where I mounted the cooler. I only had to extend the cooler-to-reservoir line of the stock power steering cooler lines about 10-12". I secured the lines to each other using some more zip ties, then secured the lines away from the FEAD belt to prevent any interference.
After rolling the car outside, I swapped in the one-piece upper radiator hose (you can see it in the picture below with the blue sticker on it).
I took the car to a deserted parking lot and flogged it for 30-45 seconds at a time, then practiced a few parallel parks to force the pump to make max pressure with almost no forward speed. That really heats the fluid up. Every few minutes I'd pull over and slide under the front bumper to put my hand on the cooler. After about 15 minutes of playing around, the new cooler was warm to the touch, but never got anything close to hot.
After a 100-mile road trip to my mom's house, the cooler wasn't even warm to the touch when I arrived. IMO that tosses the idea that any air might stagnate behind the air dam while moving, so I'm not going to cut any cooling holes in the front air dam. It's not necessary.
Oh, just for S&G's, I called my local dealer. $156+tax for a factory PSC!?! Insane! The GM engineer who designed the stock PS cooler should be taken into a back alley and flogged with a rubber hose.
It turned out so nice it almost looks factory.
Awesome mod.
-R
My power steering fluid had been mixing with coolant for who knows how long. The fluid I originally removed was a reddish-brown color, was very watery (not nearly as viscous as fresh PSF) and had a burned smell to it. My PS cooler must have been dead for a long time. It took an entire gallon of fresh fluid and flushing the system seven times before the fluid was clear again - and it still wasn't perfectly clear when I quit flushing, but I was almost out of fluid at that point. I'll flush it again in the next few months just for good measure.
It seems the pump survived the prolonged exposure to the contaminated fluid. So... bonus.
After an hour of flushing, in went the new cooler, a Hayden 402 obtained from Amazon.com for $28 to my door. It only took ten minutes to install the cooler.
The zip ties use existing body holes to mount the cooler, and I only used two of the four ties provided. I used some heavy-duty rubber washers slipped between the cooler and the car body. This created about 1/2" gap between the car's frame and the cooler itself (to isolate noise/vibration transmitted from the pump, and to allow cool air to both sides of the cooler). Then I bent the rack-to-cooler line slightly to create a little better angle to re-route the existing line to where I mounted the cooler. I only had to extend the cooler-to-reservoir line of the stock power steering cooler lines about 10-12". I secured the lines to each other using some more zip ties, then secured the lines away from the FEAD belt to prevent any interference.
After rolling the car outside, I swapped in the one-piece upper radiator hose (you can see it in the picture below with the blue sticker on it).
I took the car to a deserted parking lot and flogged it for 30-45 seconds at a time, then practiced a few parallel parks to force the pump to make max pressure with almost no forward speed. That really heats the fluid up. Every few minutes I'd pull over and slide under the front bumper to put my hand on the cooler. After about 15 minutes of playing around, the new cooler was warm to the touch, but never got anything close to hot.
After a 100-mile road trip to my mom's house, the cooler wasn't even warm to the touch when I arrived. IMO that tosses the idea that any air might stagnate behind the air dam while moving, so I'm not going to cut any cooling holes in the front air dam. It's not necessary.
Oh, just for S&G's, I called my local dealer. $156+tax for a factory PSC!?! Insane! The GM engineer who designed the stock PS cooler should be taken into a back alley and flogged with a rubber hose.
It turned out so nice it almost looks factory.
Awesome mod.
-R
That is retarded...I have got to do this. Great thread fellas.
07-29-2011, 01:39 PM
#109
Hold the phone...so that little piece of metal in the middle of the coolant line, that u replaced, is the factory power steering cooler!? Ive been wondering why the hell theres a metal section there, no wonder theres ****** coolant in my power steering fluid!!!
That is retarded...I have got to do this. Great thread fellas.
That is retarded...I have got to do this. Great thread fellas.
Yup, one of the worst designs GM has ever made. I'm thinking they made it shitty so it lets coolant go through our engines and cooling systems so we need to take it in for repair/maintenance after warranty periods have run out....lol
I bet a dealership would charge $800.00 to replace it and flush the entire system out till its clean of PS fluid....lol
.
08-03-2011, 02:03 PM
#114
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08-06-2011, 10:43 AM
#117
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I did this mod yesterday, how do I make sure I get all the air out? My steering wheel shakes randomly at 55mph (not a constant shake) Ive turned the wheel lock to lock plenty of times
08-06-2011, 08:03 PM
#119
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Well I think I fucked my pump, the fluid shot out quicker than I thought and I couldn't keep the fluid up to level while my friend was turning the wheel back in forth, while we were flushing it. And the shake is not a constant shake it just randomly shakes at 55+. and I noticed while making sharp turns like turning in the driveway it will kind of vibrate and resist.
08-07-2011, 01:01 PM
#120
Well I think I fucked my pump, the fluid shot out quicker than I thought and I couldn't keep the fluid up to level while my friend was turning the wheel back in forth, while we were flushing it. And the shake is not a constant shake it just randomly shakes at 55+. and I noticed while making sharp turns like turning in the driveway it will kind of vibrate and resist.
Your shake is probably the hubs, then.