Short story: My stock power steering fluid was contaminating both the engine coolant and PS fluid.

Long story: Ever since I bought the car 6 months ago, the power steering has always whined some when warmed up (driving 20+ mins). The whine would happen only when warmed up and 2500+ RPM (even changing lanes on the freeway!). Man, that's an embarrassing and anoying sound. Althought the level was good, the normally red fluid looked like an ugly brownish milkshake. Since the car was parked for most of the last 6 years, I figured condensation? I dunno, shoot me. I sucked out as much as I could and replaced. It helped a little but came back, so I was planning on replacing the pump.

Then I recently read here in a post that some cars came with a cooler that integrates into the top radiator hose. I looked and yep I had one. Let's delete that! Got the car up in the air, deleted the stock liquid cooler by installing a one-piece upper radiator hose, and installing a small Derale (DER-13200, $25 at Summit Racing) cooler where everybody else does.

Then I flushed the system, NOT while the engine was on, like I saw in a post here (intense, car running, with two friends, etc). I tried the procedure I saw in a youtube video. Engine off, clear tube, etc. It turns out that just turning from lock to lock with engine off, does pump the fluid out. It's slow enough to do yourself, but I had my daughter sit behind the wheel and just keep cranking from lock to lock while I kept the reservoir full. After 2-3 minutes all the crap was out. Extra line length, flush procedure + top off all took about 2-3 quarts, I did the bleed procedure, which is: fill the reservoir to normal level, start engine for 2-3 seconds then shut off, check level, crank from lock to lock to push bubbles out. Put the car back on the ground and while rolling forward slowly (engine on of course), turn lock to lock (careful not to put alot of pressure when hitting left and right locks).

NO MORE WHINE!

And by the way, my coolant was contaminated so badly that there was greasy sludge in the bottom of the coolant reservoir when I pulled out the flimsy plastic dip stick, the bottom 5 inches looked like wheel bearing grease. Gross. Flushed the system.

Anyway, no more whine. PS Fluid stays cool enough that I can stick my finger in the fluid.

Moral of the story: A milkshake machine doesn't belong in your upper radiator hose. Get it out of there!*

 

You have done a great public service! Thank you!

 

this memo from 2002 was brought to you by 2019

if you do have that much sludge in the PS tank.....remove it from the pump and flush it with solvent .....or get a new one.....ask me how i know

 

The sludge was in my radiator coolant overflow reservoir. But now I wanna know your story!

 

got a 02 TA used.......seems it had PS cooler failure at one time.......they did a half *** job of fixing it before I got the car ( read...change coolant but nothing else ).....tank had the milky froth from contamination....I did disassemble the pump and found lots of wear on pump parts and sludge in the tank ...the tank has sort of a shelf in it so you cant really see the bottom of it....hard to tell when you have it really clean

installed a turn one pump.......flushed the system.....rebuilt the old pump

 

But it sounds so cool to say, "I've got a liquid-cooled power steering system".