I posted
here a few weeks ago about a power steering leak and the search for an o-ring to fix it. I did not find a procedure, so here is my offering. A little background first. I noticed my truck dripping fluid and upon further inspection discovered it to be power steering fluid. The steering box and pump, along with any other components near them, were drenched in fluid making detection of the exact source difficult. I cleaned things up and checked and it appeared to be coming from the space between the reservoir and the pump. After a brief search on TDR I discovered that a few other folks had the some problem and tracked it to the O-ring between the pump and reservoir.
Following is my procedure to fix this problem:
1- Disconnect the hose from the reservoir to the fluid cooler at the cooler to drain the system.
2- Remove the 2 T-24 Torx fasteners that hold on the reservoir. They are not very tight and I was able to easily remove them with a hand held screw driver style driver.
3- Slide the reservoir out of the pump and raise it up high enough to access the 2 O-rings. The hoses will still be attached, but this is fairly easy to get to.
4- Remove the small, 5/8” O-ring and replace. Leave the large O-ring alone, it will not be worn. The blue line in the photo indicates the small O-ring.
5- Replace the O-ring with a Weatherhead 4629X10 O-ring available from many sources, but I found mine at NAPA. More on that later.
6- Reassemble in the reverse order and fill with ATF+4.
7- Start the truck and turn the steering wheel lock to lock several times to purge the air out of the system.
8- Top off the reservoir with ATF+4 to the mark indicated on the dipstick.
9- Clean up.
10- Celebrate with several adult beverages for just saving yourself at least $130.
Upon inspection, the O-ring exhibited a worn side as you can just see in the photo below in the 2 o’clock position. This is easy to feel rolling it between your fingers. Unfortunately, it looks like this is a design flaw that will cause the ring to wear out again and I expect to have to repeat this chore every 60,000 miles or so from here on out.
BTW, my dealer does not list this O-ring in his catalog; only the $131 powere steering pump assembly. The nice lady at NAPA did not bother to charge me for the one I installed, but I have seen them for sale for $0.27 .
As a bonus, this looks to be WAAAAY easier than replacing the whole assembly.
I hope you find this helpful and save a ton of cash. If so, you can buy me a beer when our paths cross.
100 Proof
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