Hey all.

Please help me avoid losing my mind.

I recently did a big overhaul on all my steering on my 99.

New knuckles, hubs/bearings , Spicer ball joints, dust shields, cavfab crossover steering, 1.5" spacers, Dodge Durango steering box, new PS lines, and V8 WJ pump.

My pump is new from lares (they seem to be really honest and have great customer service, I've already called a couple times for help on this) and my box is Acdelco reman (bought this before I realized how bad the reviews of them are, but it seems totally fine so far.)

So my issue is that I can't seem to get all the air out of the system, and the PS pump screams at 3k rpm. I've done the proper bleeding procedure over and over and over again. Wheels in air, lock to lock 20 times, wait for bubbles to settle, let it run, wait for bubbles to settle, lock to lock but this time cranking the engine for about 20 secs with fuel pump disabled, wash rinse repeat, and any other combination of these steps. I've tried to bleed this thing for hours.

It drives just fine, the steering feels great, super easy to turn the wheel. One stange thing is that when I do turn the wheel while moving slow there's a sound like hissing air coming directly out of the steering column. Not sure if this is normal or related. Steering assist also is much lower at idle then when the engine is at higher rpms. Ok so maybe "feels great" is an over statement but it's still way better than stock.

I'm fairly certain the system has no leaks, I put a vacuum pump on it as best I could and I didn't see any crazy bubbles or anything. But no matter what I do, if I keep doing the bleeding procedure, I keep seeing very tiny bubbles, and the pump screams at 3k. Very loud. No matter how much I've bled it the pump continues to get super loud at exactly 3k rpm.

Any thoughts, I'm really getting fed up with this. I can't tell if the system is leaking fluid anywhere, because the bleeding procedure continues to cause lots of fluid to spit up out of my reservoir so there is fluid everywhere.


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Please can anyone weigh in on this. I'm losing my mind. I finally bought another brand new lares WJ pump and I'm having the exact same problem. NO MATTER WHAT I DO there's air, air air. It just keeps coming. I modified my old cam to hook up a vacuum brake bleeder to the system and that seems to work pretty well, but the air won't stop coming. I can't see any leaks anywhere. I even pressurized the system to try to see if I could make any leaks more apparent. No fluid or anything came out. The air keeps coming, I know there's something wrong because this is not at all normal. I've been at this for hours and hours. Every possible combo of vaccuum, rotating the pump slowly by hand to circulate fluid, turning the wheels, it just keeps coming. But no fluid leaks

 

What kind of oil did you use?

 

You still have air in the lines.

I did the same thing with mine a while back. Of course I had a few bad re manufactured pumps as well when it was all said and done.
One other thing, I did is go with a really nice remote res. for my fluid, it also has a filter built in to it which besides the obvious helps with cavitation.





The most problem prone area for air is right at the top where that U-shaped bend is, and where the switch mounts to it.




Hopefully you have someone to help you with the bleeding procedure? It will help quite a bit to have someone to move the wheel back and forth.

• To start with use a good clear power steering fluid. (I used the Lucas power steering fluid)
• Don't turn on your engine till it is completely bleed.
• Clean up all drips on your engine from previous attempts to bleed so you get a good visual on the situation.
• Raise the front end off of the pavement, so your wheels can be moved left to right. (lock to lock)
• Try to vacuum out as much air as possible before the cranking of the wheels with a mighty-vac with attached catch can.
• For vehicles that don't bleed out easily turn your wheels hard lock to lock, and hold them at the full lock position for a while till the bubbles stop coming up. You need to be able to see down inside the reservoir for this.
• Make sure you keep the fluid level full while doing the bleeding process (again, this is when it is good to have a helper)
• Keep going lock to lock till ALL the bubbles are gone. It can take more than thirty turns sometimes to flush it out so don't worry about the count.

 

Wow thats areally nice res.

I did realize my main issue was that I had my return hooked up to the smaller hose fitting on the reservoir, not the larger one. I made this mistake because my stock line fit on the smaller fitting and not the correct fitting so I just went with it without thinking. Since then I have corrected this issue by making an adapter to go from the stock retunr line to the larger return barb. This helped the noise tremendously, however there is still some whine. I suspect air since I only bled it shortly. However, the larger issue I'm having now is that when I come to a stop or very slow speed my steering assist decreases dramatically, worse than stock. Once I accelerate it feels great, but low speeds it sucks. Any Ideas what this could be due to? I saw on another thread that the high pressure fitting has 4 small relief holes in the side on thje WJ fitting and just 1 on the XJ fitting, so someone suggested that drilling those holes could improve performance, but not for my specific issue.

Also, what is that in line switch you have there? I dont have that on mine.

 

I also want to note that I have no idea how hooking up the return wrong could have caused the issue of infinite air coming out of the system. I even reverse pressure tested it and found no leaks. No idea what that was about. I might even have the same issue now as I continue to bleed it, I'll have to see.

 

Yep.



Dex/Merc works great, and it's cheap and everywhere. Plus, you can see it when it leaks.

 

I disagree. It will foam when used in a power steering pump. I think that is where all the air is coming from. Power steering fluid or light hydraulic oil only

 

There are many thousands of people using DexMarc with zero problems. It's even recommended by the manufacturer.

 

Suite yourself. I have had foaming problems with it so I won't use it anymore for that purpose

 

Does anyone have any input on the issue I mentioned, poor steering assist at low speed? I will say I'm running prestol power steering fluid. Just what I grabbed from AZ. I doubt that would cause the issue but I'm open to changing fluids.

 

Firing up an old-ish thread....

I had a Hyundai Tuscon where I got a Cardone pump... NEW, not remanufactured, and it wouldn't stop whining. Power assist was fine as far as I could tell. After spending many hours trying to do this and that to eliminate the air from the system, I bought a junk yard pump off of Ebay and it whined for about 3 seconds before it got quiet. But it whined (although quieter) when I turned the steering back and forth and that went away after I cycled the steering several times and then let it sit for a half hour.

Now I have, on my desk, in a box with a return label, a NEW Lares pump for my 1999 XJ. It whines. I ran the thing for two weeks and about 7 commutes to work and back, which are short, but should be perfect for bleeding a power steering pump. It still whines. Fluid won't stop aerating.

I bought a core engine for my stroker build which is sitting on my trailer in the back yard. It came with a rusty power steering pump with a beat up pulley with a remanufactured sticker on it. I installed that, and it is quiet as a mouse and the air isn't even out of the system yet.

I am pretty sure that in both cases of bad pumps listed above, the pumps were sucking air through the shaft seals.

In response to the thread conversation above, the infinite air is because the pump is literally sucking air through its seals, or the housing itself, or something like that. Automatic transmission fluid is fine to use and it is the manufacturer's recommended fill in some cases. GM and Chrysler will use the same pump on lots of applications and one recommends power steering fluid while the other recommends automatic transmission fluid. You can run engine oil in your power steering if you don't have anything else. Hell, run vegetable oil if you are stranded on the trail and need something and have a bottle of it in your camping supplies.

Like the first generation Mazda 3's. The Ford Focus uses the exact same transmission, but there were two different transmission fluid recommendations. "Mazda" wanted to use some kind of fluid and Ford said to use something like Mercon 5. I can't remember if it was Mercon 5, but when you literally can't find any fluid at the store that is specified for the Mazda, the Ford stuff works just the same.

Ford also switched to 5w20 engine oil in later years with THE EXACT SAME ENGINE that recommended 5w30 a couple model years earlier. They didn't change anything. They needed a little bit better fuel economy/emissions, so they went with the lighter weight oil which is easier to pump.

 

It is nice that Lares is really honest and has great customer service, to bad their pump is junk. A screaming pump often means excess wear is happening, a wearing pump sheds metal that then destroys the gear box. Beware.

If you got a cooler, be sure it and its hoses are installed below the reservoir fluid level, else you will have a very very hard time at getting the air out.

 

With the hoses swapped, you was sucking air, that if done for long can damage the pump, which may explain why the lump is noisy even after the hoses where corrected.