Question for AcuraTech (or others) re: power steering fluid flush Acura 3.2TL

[Jim 5]

My wife's '03 3.2TL PS fluid looks pretty bad at 40k miles. I'd like to exchange it with new honda fluid. Can anybody let me know if my plan sounds reasonable?

The PS reservoir has two hoses going into it, one stacked about 1" directly above the other. It makes sense to me that the Upper is the return line, and the lower is the line going to the PS pump itself.

My thought is that I could disconnect the upper return line and plug the hole in the reservior. Next I would allow the return line to flow into a bucket or something. Start the car and keep filling the reservoir with clean fluid (not allowing it to run dry).

Allow the dirty fluid to be pumped out the return line until it runs clean into the bucket..then turn off the car, reconnect the return line to the reservoir and top off.

Anybody see a problem with this procedure?

Can anybody confirm that my assumption about the my identification of which one would be the return line?

Thanks in advance for any help with this

 

[Dark Jedi]

I would have someone in the car to turn the car on and off. dont know how fast the pump will pump the fluid out. this way you can control the fluid intake and not run the pump dry. do you have a haynes manual? might tell you which is which.


I remember while working on B-52's. a guy went to drain the hyd resivor and took off the supply line and in just a few sec he was soaked from head to toe.

 

[CharBaby]

Jim5, you are correct. The top hose is the return line. I agree with DJ,(have someone in the car). The fluid will flow very fast and you may not be able to keep up while pouring in new fluid and you may have to shut her down to catch up. You may also want to connect a longer hose the the return line so that you can run the fluid down toward the ground into a 1 gal jug. The reason I say 1 gal jug is to avoid splash back from a bucket or oil pan.(Yeah, I've done that!).

 

[Jim 5]

All good points. Thanks for the input guys!

 

[AcuraTech]

I dont agree with taking hoses off to flush the fluid. Too much of a pain in the *** and too easy to make a big mess. I recommend the turkey baster method since the reservoir holds about 1/3 of the total fluid. If you suck the fluid out of the reservoir and replace it 2 or 3 times over the course of a couple hundred miles, your fluid should be in good shape.

 

[Jim 5]

Thanks for the tip.

I usually use my oil extractor for this purpose, but I wasn't sure how much of the total fluid the reservoir would hold.

I'll do the suck and replace method between the wife's trip to the malls.