Power steering cooler upgrade

[landtank]

Well there is one small junk yard in NH that allows browsing. They had maybe 30 Toyotas total and 2 of them had the coolers in them. Both where some kind of small 4 wheel drive buggy, 1 sedan and one station wagon. 10 bucks for the cooler with it's supply lines. I got the lines incase I need to fab up some sort of tube assembly to get that thing installed.

Nice tip Brian, thanks

 

[stayalert]

Update on mine....I didn't want to wait (I was operating with a "pressure bandage" on my stock leaking cooler) to have myself or someone (Thanks for the kind offer!) source a used cooler so I bought and installed a B&M auto tranny cooler. I got it new for $53 from Summitracing.com. Seems to work perfectly. I hardmounted it below the horns with some space between the a/c condenser and the cooler. I used a dremel to cut the stock lines above and behind the frame cross member and ran hose from there. Anywhere there was contact or potential for rubbing I sleeved the hose in another hose for wear protection.

Summit shipped incredibly fast and threw in a baseball hat as well.....

Rob M

 

[bjowett]

LT, you are welcome... hope it serves you well.

Pics Rob, pics!

 

[slambson]

My Mitsubishi/Chrylser has a very similar looking one with the only exception being the in and out are banjo fittings both on top. You could simply cut the hard line going in and have the same setup. These came on the starions/Conquests during the mid-80's, probably on alot of turbocharged mitsus. Might be slighly larger but definately the same design and manufacturer.

 

[stayalert]

LT, you are welcome... hope it serves you well.

Pics Rob, pics!

Grrr. meant to do that this weekend...Will do tonight....

 

[stayalert]

For ~50$ I got the B&M 70268 from Summit racing. (summitracing.com) cut out (with a dremel) my stock cooler, installed the B&M cooler, topped up the fluid and Bob's yer uncle.....
The black box below and to the right is a radar detector that came with the car when I bought it (used)


I primed and painted the bracketry that I used so it would be a few years before they looked like the bracket for the radar detector.

I tied in to the facory lines in a location that maintained the stock mounting of those lines (exceprt for the last mount (see mangled mount along frame rail?)

I have a front reciever hitch (the steel "beam" visible in the photos.) it didn't pose much additional challenge for routing of lines.

Where lines were or could be subject to wear I ran them hose in hose for chafing protection.

The hard mounting (as opposed to zip tie type mounting) that I did allows for about an inch of air space between the cooler and the a/C condenser. This is preferable for cooling efficiency

I'm hoping this will be an acceptable solution, it seems to work flawlessley. I'm bracing myself for ccriticism (constructive or otherwise bring it on.)

Rob M

1st photo shows patch that held fine for a week or so 'til I got roundtoit

 

[stayalert]

A couple more showing connections to remains of fact. piping and hose protection.

Thw white thing in the photo on the left is the rad drain petcock if someone is still searching for that

 

[bjowett]

Looks good to me...!

 

[Rookie2]

For ~50$ I got the B&M 70268 from Summit racing. (summitracing.com) cut out (with a dremel) my stock cooler,

What do you mean by this? There is no stock PS cooler, that's why you're adding one... right??

 

[stayalert]

I mean:
There is a stock cooler - it is a pipe that loops back and forth a couple of times below & to the front of the front frame cross member. My stock cooler rusted and I have been visually inspecting it to determine what to do and when. When I was in Maine for ~2 weeks on a camping vacation the stock cooler developed a pinhole that resulted in pissing out the power steering fluid. I'm lead to believe the stock cooler is available but was also lead to believe that it is expensive. My solution was to band aid the thing to get it home and then put in the B & M cooler as shown above. I believe that in my environment (New England/road salt) this is an improvement. It would also seem to be an improvement as the cooler is now in the airflow induced by the fan.
cheers.

I should prolly add that my truck is a '94

 

[Rookie2]

I mean:
There is a stock cooler - it is a pipe that loops back and forth a couple of times below & to the front of the front frame cross member. My stock cooler rusted and I have been visually inspecting it to determine what to do and when. When I was in Maine for ~2 weeks on a camping vacation the stock cooler developed a pinhole that resulted in pissing out the power steering fluid. I'm lead to believe the stock cooler is available but was also lead to believe that it is expensive. My solution was to band aid the thing to get it home and then put in the B & M cooler as shown above. I believe that in my environment (New England/road salt) this is an improvement. It would also seem to be an improvement as the cooler is now in the airflow induced by the fan.
cheers.

I should prolly add that my truck is a '94

Oh.. I got you now. Yes, I do seem to recall the PS metal piping being quite expensive. Makes you wonder why Toyota didn't put a actual cooler in to begin with. I wonder to what extent these coolers impede air flow to the radiator.


Rookie2

 

[stayalert]

I wonder to what extent these coolers impede air flow to the radiator.


Rookie2

Yeah I know....Now I have nice ccol power steering fluid but will blow the headgasket

Airflow probably isn't too restricted but the air is now being pre-heated before it gets to the rad....My a/c rarely if ever gets used so at least I have that going for me

 

[stayalert]

Here's a photo of the factory power steering ccoler....On the truck it would be located at the lower front edge of the frame cross member at the front of the vehicle, behind and below the front bumper..

 

[Curran]

Rob, did the cooler you bought from Summit include everything that you see in the second photo you posted? If so was that stuff helpful or did you end up sourcing / fabricating your own brackets and doo-dads?

Thanks

 

[stayalert]

Rob, did the cooler you bought from Summit include everything that you see in the second photo you posted? If so was that stuff helpful or did you end up sourcing / fabricating your own brackets and doo-dads?

Thanks

yes and no.....Everything thats in that photo was included (I borrowed the image from their website....They ALSO included a summit racing baseball hat, a catalogue, and some stickers

I slighly modifed the brackety that was included by enlarging or elongating a hole or two to fit better....I also shortened at least one of the brackets....When I did my install I rooted around in my milkcrate of various hoses to find suitable hose...As I was cleaning up I noticed the nice neat coil of hose that came with the kit When I dumped the summit box out on my driveway the coil of hose was in there but it didn't come out.....Made a nice addition to my milkcrate of assorted hoses though I found the installation of the cooler to be very easy, only stock part I removed was the plastic grill (5 or 6 phillips screw if I'm not mistaken) I removed and reinstalled the horn assembly to make the work easier as well....

 

[Silicon 70]

I might have to do this mod as well. I just found out I need another PS pump.

 

[landtank]

mounted my junk yard cooler today. It has 3 mounting holes which I drilled out to 1/2", inserted a 3/8" ID rubber gromet so it would have a cushing effect when bolted to the brackets. The upper one was pretty simple, a simple 1" step at one end and with holes at either end it bolted right in. The lower one was more work as I used 1" flat stock gotten at Home Depot and had to put some 90 deg rotary bends in it so I could use those bends as hinge points to build in an offset to the braket to align propperly to the cooler. I still have the plumbing to do.

 

[T Y L E R]

Good time to swap in new horns ..


Looks good Rick.



TY

 

[cruiserdan]

Very nice!





pssst, paint the brackets....................

 

[bjowett]

Here's one for long lived PS pumps... nice job.