Hi all, I have recently flushed the power steering by sucking out the old fluid and refilling the reservoir and than running the car and turning the wheel. After running the engine my fluid has turned dark each time. I have gone through about 6-7 pints of new fluid.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the reservoir has a filter in the bottom and this could be the source of the contamination. If there is a filter is it replaceable or do I replace the resevoir? Thanks!!

Jeff

 

To my knowledge this is normal. I've done PS changes numerous times on different Honda's and if it's already black you'll get something very similar. If you shine a flashlight through the fluid you'll notice it gets from black to something like coca cola and lighter progressively but not all at once.

You can't ignore the fact that the system holds much less than the total amount of new fluid you actually put in, granted since it's mixing with old and you're only removing from reservoir you are actually removing some new fluid as well. It's just a little bit or the old dark fluid can change the color but not the make up of the new fluid you put in.

I don't think there's actually a filter. When I drained the reservoir all the way once I noticed there was a screen at the bottom but that's it I think. There's nothing down there that would turn your fluid black. It's just old left in system mixing and coloring the new. If you pull off one of the lines and do a complete lock to lock drain that way I think the color would be much lighter but you run your system dry for a couple of seconds that way and you'll have to bleed the air out of the system.

 

Ok, I figured though after 6 pints of fluid I might have considerable lightning of the color. I did pull the return line and boy does that empty fast, started the car and didn't even get to turn the wheel. Could not add fast enough to stay ahead, just kept up.

So not a filter but rather a screen so that wouldn't retain any old fluid obviously.

Any idea how much the entire system holds?

 

Just me but it won't hurt anything to pull the res and clean it. I'd turn it "upside" down and spray some brake cleaner into the "hose connections". Gunk (technical term ) will settle at the bottom of the res.

 

Sounds good. Do I need to plug the larger diameter hose to prevent backflow or a large amount of air entering the system?

 

Yes, I would plug/clamp off both to prevent air from getting in and also control the "mess" of fluid dripping as you are cleaning.