With the Christmas Tree Run coming up this weekend, I was pushing hard to get my power steering fixed this week. I ordered Trail Gear's 1650 psi pump kit thinking that it would be a great upgrade for the time being until I can put a ram on for hydro assist. Reading the instructions showed that the cooler that comes with the kit wouldn't work with an A/C truck because of the A/C condenser fan is where the cooler is supposed to mount. I ended up pulling the bumper and grill off to take a look and see what I could do instead. It may be a wheeler, but I really like having A/C!
The truck has a A/T cooler in the radiator that isn't being used and my original thought was to use that as my PS cooler. After some Google-fu, I decided that wouldn't be a good solution because the coolant would raise the PS fluid temps. My compromise was to buy a single pass cooler to mount below the passenger side headlight. The next night my buddy Mike, TonsOFun, Mr. Jitz and his son came over to help knock this out. The hope was to get it finished in one night starting at 8:30 pm... On a weeknight. (I have awesome friends!) In typical Trail Gear fashion, the instructions sucked. It also is more of a "one size kinda fits nothing" ordeal. It seemed like every step took some ingenuity to figure out. I am so glad that I wasn't tackling this on my own! When we got to the part of mounting the cooler, my friends did what they should and laughed at me. The fact of the matter was the mini cooler I bought wasn't going to do a thing. I finally came to the realization that steering is more important than A/C and the fan needed to go. The next road block was the cooler was sized to not have the A/C condenser at all, not just the fan. A little frustrated, we figured out that the mounting holes on the cooler were the same width as the mounting location of the fan. That would put the cooler lower and out more than it should be, but I could trim the grill where nobody would see and it should work. We got everything together and started bleeding the system with the engine off. It just wouldn't bleed! I swear it seemed like the fluid was multiplying by itself in the system. Power steering fluid was everywhere... After about 50 or 60 turns lock to lock, we decided to start the truck to force the fluid through system. That is when we found a loose banjo fitting on the ABS actuator when it started spraying fluid. ("Oh! That's why it wouldn't bleed...") We worked it until the bubbles were mostly gone out and called it a night. It was about 3:30 in the morning.
The next day I was back at it after work trying to button everything up. I took the cap off the reservoir and PS fluid came pouring out! Like I said before, it's like the fluid was multiplying... Now I'm super confused and slightly worried. I sucked out some fluid and went back through the bleeding process. Once again I had very small bubbles, but I wasn't seeing any leaking. I can't be sure of this because it is hard to look for leaks when everything is wet with fluid and I needed to turn the wheel. I went until I didn't see bubbles anymore and started putting everything back together. I trimmed the grill and re-did the connection for my aux lights with a new plug. I got the bumper up to bolt it down and my winch ran smack dab into that PS cooler. I was not happy... So, everything came back off. I didn't want to remove any hoses, so my options were limited. I ended up finding the one spot I could get the cooler, but the only way to secure it was with zip-ties. I figured if it was good enough for Volkswagen...
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Then the process sped up a bit. I got the grill back on and made sure that nothing was rubbing or touching where it shouldn't be. All in all, I was happy with how it came out.
I put the bumper back on and everything cleared! It was about 11:30 and my daughter was asleep so I didn't get a chance to test drive it, but I was overall happy with how it all turned out.
This morning I drove it to work. It doesn't seem to be leaking or have any more air in the system. Driving the truck is kinda like driving something with Saginaw steering. There is almost no resistance in the steering wheel when you are turning on the street. I am very excited to see how it does off-road. The downside is this pump is noisy! Reading the reviews, I was prepared for it but it does make me a little nervous. It sounds like a supercharger or timing gears on a SBC. It's not annoying, but it is definitely noticeable. All in all, I think I will be happy with the upgrade and I am so thankful to everyone that helped! I guess we will see how he does this weekend.
The little radio available to call back just wasn't strong enough to respond although I did try. Besides I was helping an 80 get off the trail.
