Club 80-90 Forums

Hi all, the day before going away I had a power steering hose blow, it was the flexible one from the pump to the solid pipe that runs down the length of the van.
I took it off a ran it in to Pirtek who made me another and so got us off on holiday!
But since fitting it the steering has been "whiney", now I think I May know the problem but I thought I would see if anyone had any other ideas.
The bent metal part of the original hose would not fit in the crimper at Pirtek so the chap cut it off and soldered a fitting to the end of it, enabling him to make a straight hydraulic hose and then you connect the bendy metal banjo hose to the hose, he also copied the old hose exactly which seemed to have a connector in the middle (I suspect the old hose split before and cutting and jointing it would be an easy repair, and I didn't tell him to leave it out)
If you rev the engine there is a whine from the system, if you turn the steering it gets worse, I suspect that the new fitting on the bendy metal hose and the joint in the middle are a slight restriction and so causing the pump to work harder, I have cleaned the filter in the reservoir and replaced all the fluid.
I don't think the pump is damaged as I saw a wet patch on the hose, called the missus to come and turn the steering and saw the hose blow and so killed the engine, there was still fluid in the reservoir.
Any advise would be appreciated as the whine is getting on my nerves and if the pump is struggling I don't want to pop any seals within it.
Cheers.
( my first post so be gentle )

Did you bleed it till all the air was out?

I did from the banjo on the pump but didn't get any air out and thought that was because it is a flow and a return system so should self bleed, but as it was still noisy I got under it on a camp site and cracked one of the unions at the rack but still got no air out, or not that I could see anyway.
Is there a procedure to bleed these?

I believe there is a noise reduction valve in the short piece of pipe that goes from the pump to pipe that goes the rack.Is this still in place.

It's just a hose as far as I know, but if what I thought was a join in the centre of the old pipe was infact this valve then oh poo. Although it did appear to be just a hose connector.

The short piece of pipe I mentioned is the the one that reduces noise.The brickwerks replacement pipe kit relies on you using this pipe.

That could be the problem then, it was a piece about an inch long almost exactly in the centre of the hydraulic hose.

Ah....
oh well.

FWIW my OE power steering has after market flex pipes installed and has whined for 5 years exactly as you describe yours does. I do not have the noise reducer section either.
Pump has kept up with this.
If I haven't driven the van for a week or two the noise catches my attention but I soon ignore it.

Turning to stereo up is one way of curing it.