apintofmild
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There doesn't seem to be a service interval for renewing the PSF, and what follows might be a waste of £25 quid. That said, if in the future I get saddled with an expensive power steering repair bill, and I can take comfort from the fact I've done what's reasonably practical in terms of preventative maintenance.
The car's only done 60K, but I figure renewing the fluid at least a couple of times in the car's lifetime can't do any harm.
Having looked at various sites, for various cars, there is little in the way of a definitive way of changing the power steering fluid. Some advocate pulling off the reservoir return hose and running the engine to drain the system. I have three problems with this:
1. The pump will almost certainly run dry, and and that can't be good.
2. There's a good change of getting a gob of air in the system.
3. The engine bay (and I) will most likely get sprayed with hydraulic fluid.
I've no idea what the total capacity of the system is, so didn't really know how much fluid I'd need. To that end I opted to drain the reservoir, refill with new fluid, drive for a day or two and repeat until the colour of the fluid improved.
My cunning plan was to use a 50ml syringe (eBay) to suck the fluid out. Little did I know that PSF and the rubber material used to make the syringe plunger are incompatible! After a couple of strokes the syringe stuck solid! Have ruined two of my three syringes, I opted for plan B.
I connected a 2.5 litre bottle between fluid and syringe, using the syringe to pull a vacuum in the bottle, which would then draw out the fluid (thereby keeping the syringe dry).
Over the course of a fortnight I did 8 exchanges (consuming two 1 litre bottles of Honda PSF). I kept a sample after each exchange to ***es the progress.
The leftt-most tube is new & unused fluid, then my 60K fluid, then the result of each drain / fill cycle. The right hand (final) tube isn't spotless, but it would take gallons of fluid to achieve that and I'm happy with what I'm left with.
The car's only done 60K, but I figure renewing the fluid at least a couple of times in the car's lifetime can't do any harm.
Having looked at various sites, for various cars, there is little in the way of a definitive way of changing the power steering fluid. Some advocate pulling off the reservoir return hose and running the engine to drain the system. I have three problems with this:
1. The pump will almost certainly run dry, and and that can't be good.
2. There's a good change of getting a gob of air in the system.
3. The engine bay (and I) will most likely get sprayed with hydraulic fluid.
I've no idea what the total capacity of the system is, so didn't really know how much fluid I'd need. To that end I opted to drain the reservoir, refill with new fluid, drive for a day or two and repeat until the colour of the fluid improved.
My cunning plan was to use a 50ml syringe (eBay) to suck the fluid out. Little did I know that PSF and the rubber material used to make the syringe plunger are incompatible! After a couple of strokes the syringe stuck solid! Have ruined two of my three syringes, I opted for plan B.
I connected a 2.5 litre bottle between fluid and syringe, using the syringe to pull a vacuum in the bottle, which would then draw out the fluid (thereby keeping the syringe dry).
Over the course of a fortnight I did 8 exchanges (consuming two 1 litre bottles of Honda PSF). I kept a sample after each exchange to ***es the progress.
The leftt-most tube is new & unused fluid, then my 60K fluid, then the result of each drain / fill cycle. The right hand (final) tube isn't spotless, but it would take gallons of fluid to achieve that and I'm happy with what I'm left with.