Quick question... my 1990 Laredo seems to be giving me a whole bunch of random issues nowadays. It's become my #1 money sink, but I don't want to get rid of it, so I'm asking for help figuring out this problem so I can keep her running a few more years

My power steering pump or reservoir is leaking... I'm pretty sure it's the pump though, because when I turn my wheels sharply either direction (to make a u-turn, for example), I lose fluid (looks like from the pressured hose) and it burns off on the engine creating a little puff of smoke. that said, the pressurized hose is also soaked most of the time, so I guess it could be leaking from the hose. :P

My questions are these:

• How do you replace the darn thing? I can't find write-ups on it, and while I have the haynes manual, I wanted to see if y'all had suggestions.
• Do I need any special tools?
• Any considerations?
• Is it continually pressured and if so, what do I do to depressurize?
• Do I replace the reservoir at the same time?
• Do I need to know anything about removing or replacing the pressured hose(s)?

I'm a novice at this, so any suggestions are very appreciated

 

Once the engine is off it is safe to work on,Just remove the nuts and bolts from the pump it is pretty easy,You can replace the pump without the resevoir,resevoir is proabably fine.
I have found that the caps go bad and leak when you turn it off from all the air escaping.
I am not sure what they cost new but you can find good deals from the jy and sometimes new ones or little use.

 

cool, good to know, thanks

Anything I need to worry about with a JY one? Bad seals or stuff like that?
I was looking at RockAuto today, they seem to be about $100 bucks on average... any downside to buying a new one and a new pressured hose and just bolting it in?

And is that it? Drain it, pull the old one off, put the new one one, put new hoses, refill the reservoir and bleed it?

Is it just a plug-on part like a starter or alternator?

 

i would clean it up with some degreaser and see where it was leaking
from first . then just change whats needed, most likely just an hose.
yep its just a pull and put for that one. just turn the steering wheel
all the way right and left a few times to get the air out and refill to level

 

Why would you have to buy a new pump if it is the high pressure line that is leaking? Just change that hose, 10 min and you're done. The leak as you described it can only be the hose. The pump leaks are different.

 

Oh wow, that's really good to know! thanks so much for the reply.
I'll start with the hoses then and see if that helps

 

Just start by changeing the pressure line first.That should fix your leak.

 

Will do, thank you!

 

Another old post that I wanted to close out...

I replaced the high pressure line about 3 weeks ago now, and haven't lost a drop of PS fluid since then, so that was not only great advice, but was a $15 part that took maybe an hour of time to replace, and the bulk of THAT was taking out the airbox and replacing it.

Thanks so much for the help with this one.

 

happy it worked out.