If you have tiny hands, maybe. My hands do not fit there on my 4.6 cars, and you have an intercooler to deal with, iirc.
Power steering pressure line woes and AN upgrade
So my sons car(the white 95 SC that I’ve posted about) started leaking power steering fluid. We changed the pump back around thanksgiving and it looked like the leak was coming from near there. I removed the line and the evo. Replaced the evo orings and the Teflon seal on the line. That fixed one leak but it still had another. After doing some digging it looked to be coming from the bottom of the pressure line. With the car running I pried on the line a little looking for the leak and it dumped all of the fluid out. It looks like maybe the metal has been rubbing on the block and I helped open it up some more.
This part has mostly been a rant. My bird is currently hogging my shop for its suspension rebuild so I’m stuck doing this outside in the dirt with these impossible to get to fittings. So as I’m trying to figure out how to get to them, I find that my hose has some weird port on it. Anyone know why this would be there? The top arrow is the end of the pressure line. The bottom arrow is pointing to a loop to hold the rubber cap on.
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As I was searching around I found this on rockauto. It has a hole for a fitting.
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So my questions.
1) I already have everything to upgrade the line on my car to AN per the tech article. The part about grinding the russel fitting down to fit in the pump and not block the hole in the threads doesn’t apply to cars with an EVO right? Because my line will screw into the evo and not the pump itself. Unless I’m missing something.
2) For those with super coupes or maybe it applies to other engine compartments too. Can I get to the rack side fitting from the top? I already have the upper intercooler pipe off. If I remove the lower pipe it looks like I may be able to reach the top of the rack.
This part has mostly been a rant. My bird is currently hogging my shop for its suspension rebuild so I’m stuck doing this outside in the dirt with these impossible to get to fittings. So as I’m trying to figure out how to get to them, I find that my hose has some weird port on it. Anyone know why this would be there? The top arrow is the end of the pressure line. The bottom arrow is pointing to a loop to hold the rubber cap on.
As I was searching around I found this on rockauto. It has a hole for a fitting.
So my questions.
1) I already have everything to upgrade the line on my car to AN per the tech article. The part about grinding the russel fitting down to fit in the pump and not block the hole in the threads doesn’t apply to cars with an EVO right? Because my line will screw into the evo and not the pump itself. Unless I’m missing something.
2) For those with super coupes or maybe it applies to other engine compartments too. Can I get to the rack side fitting from the top? I already have the upper intercooler pipe off. If I remove the lower pipe it looks like I may be able to reach the top of the rack.
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I am not familiar with anything beyond the 4.6.
But I did this in my effort to do the tech upgrade mentioned:
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It might not appear that I did this mod with the engine installed, but I did. It was indeed a PITA, mostly getting the fitting into the pump without cross threading, that took a few tries and a few fittings to get right. The aluminum yields to the cast iron every time.
The only other thing I have is that I removed the variable assist valve. That stiffened the steering at low speeds but also removed the "mush" you can feel at low speeds. Being underdriven 25 %, it sometimes take a touch of throttle to ease the steering into action at low speeds. The end result is a more solid and linear feel to the steering. Getting rid of 5 feet of hard line and all my annoying leaks was the goal. I replaced all that hard line with 10" of stainless, a good tradeoff.
I also replaced all my front control arms, uppers, lowers, inners, outers and the rack itself. The hubs are upgraded to 94-04 Mustang as well.
Best of luck, I hope this helps.
But I did this in my effort to do the tech upgrade mentioned:
It might not appear that I did this mod with the engine installed, but I did. It was indeed a PITA, mostly getting the fitting into the pump without cross threading, that took a few tries and a few fittings to get right. The aluminum yields to the cast iron every time.
The only other thing I have is that I removed the variable assist valve. That stiffened the steering at low speeds but also removed the "mush" you can feel at low speeds. Being underdriven 25 %, it sometimes take a touch of throttle to ease the steering into action at low speeds. The end result is a more solid and linear feel to the steering. Getting rid of 5 feet of hard line and all my annoying leaks was the goal. I replaced all that hard line with 10" of stainless, a good tradeoff.
I also replaced all my front control arms, uppers, lowers, inners, outers and the rack itself. The hubs are upgraded to 94-04 Mustang as well.
Best of luck, I hope this helps.
Attachments
I used the aeroquip parts linked in the tech article.
www.tccoa.com
Suspension/Steering: Converting the high pressure power...
Discussion thread: http://forums.tccoa.com/showthread.php?t=136327 This is a must have/must do mod for those who want to clean up the engine bay, reduce leak points and even improve power steering performance a bit. The factory line's main purpose for taking the rather long/convoluted path(see...
www.tccoa.com
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