I've been meaning to do this since I bought the truck, and for lots of reasons, I finally got around to it today.
Since the day I got the truck, the power steering pump has made a terrible whine for the first few minutes when it gets really cold out. It is fine in warmer weather, but when it would get down near -10f or colder, the pump was not happy at all. My guess has always been moisture build up since you could get the noise to stop by cycling the wheel back and forth a few times.
Regardless of the cause, the fluid was shot. Very brown and did not smell good at all. I had an elaborate plan to flush the whole system with fresh fluid, but in the end I opted for the dump, fill, repeat method. After several dump cycles, the fluid started to show some improvement. And after running about two full quarts through the system, I got it looking new.
What i found was with the intake snorkel removed, the hoses for the reservoir were flexible enough to let the tank tip over into a bowl.
Worked out pretty well. I just kept cycling the wheel from lock to lock every time I added fresh fluid. One thing I noticed was after the very first fill/dump cycle the fluid came out very aerated, but got progressively better very quickly. By the time I was done, there were no bubbles at all.
My explorer has 147k miles on it, and that is WAAAY too long before changing out the fluid.
I used Amsoil OE fluid because I wanted a synthetic that came in a gallon container and didn't break the bank. I'm expecting great things, and hope this cures the cold weather issue I've had since I got it. Regardless, It can only help.
After I got done with the expedition, I did our 02 outback. As bad as the expedition was, the outback was worse! It took about 3 quarts of fluid to clean up the Subaru. Man that stuff was nasty! It too has 147k miles, and again, that's just waaaay too long.
I did the Subaru the same way. The hoses were long enough and flexible enough to allow me to simply invert the reservoir to make for a quick dump cycle.
I would have much rather sucked clean fluid into the pump and exhausted the old into a bucket so they didn't mix, but this worked.
Really, For as little work as this is, I might just do a cycle of two every couple oil changes to keep it fresh. It really wasn't much work at all in the end.
Since the day I got the truck, the power steering pump has made a terrible whine for the first few minutes when it gets really cold out. It is fine in warmer weather, but when it would get down near -10f or colder, the pump was not happy at all. My guess has always been moisture build up since you could get the noise to stop by cycling the wheel back and forth a few times.
Regardless of the cause, the fluid was shot. Very brown and did not smell good at all. I had an elaborate plan to flush the whole system with fresh fluid, but in the end I opted for the dump, fill, repeat method. After several dump cycles, the fluid started to show some improvement. And after running about two full quarts through the system, I got it looking new.
What i found was with the intake snorkel removed, the hoses for the reservoir were flexible enough to let the tank tip over into a bowl.
Worked out pretty well. I just kept cycling the wheel from lock to lock every time I added fresh fluid. One thing I noticed was after the very first fill/dump cycle the fluid came out very aerated, but got progressively better very quickly. By the time I was done, there were no bubbles at all.
My explorer has 147k miles on it, and that is WAAAY too long before changing out the fluid.
I used Amsoil OE fluid because I wanted a synthetic that came in a gallon container and didn't break the bank. I'm expecting great things, and hope this cures the cold weather issue I've had since I got it. Regardless, It can only help.
After I got done with the expedition, I did our 02 outback. As bad as the expedition was, the outback was worse! It took about 3 quarts of fluid to clean up the Subaru. Man that stuff was nasty! It too has 147k miles, and again, that's just waaaay too long.
I did the Subaru the same way. The hoses were long enough and flexible enough to allow me to simply invert the reservoir to make for a quick dump cycle.
I would have much rather sucked clean fluid into the pump and exhausted the old into a bucket so they didn't mix, but this worked.
Really, For as little work as this is, I might just do a cycle of two every couple oil changes to keep it fresh. It really wasn't much work at all in the end.
