Caprice power steering leak

[kevm14]

I wanted to grab lunch yesterday and decided to take the Caprice. Of course it started right up but I noticed some mouse evidence in the interior. Not good. The brake feel is also pretty top notch on this car - I kind of continuously chased that and it's ironic that in its state now it has good brakes. It caused me to mentally rank brake feel among my fleet:
1st: CTS-V. Obviously. Stainless braided lines, and fixed 4 piston calipers FTW. Highest performance by a lot.
2nd: For firmness I'd give this a tie between the Caprice and SRX. For overall brake performance I would give it to the Caprice over the SRX.
3rd: Once again this may be a tie between the Roadmaster and STS. The Roadmaster is more or less working as good as it should for having rear drums. The STS is still worse than it should be. The STS has the higher performance brakes between the two.
4th: Ram. It is simply awful. I'm not sure the rear drums are doing anything and even a moderate stop causes brake smell. These are probably borderline dangerous and I really need to overhaul them. Maybe I should start with the rear and see how it feels then. For the record, the Ranger had an order of magnitude better stopping.

Ok, off my brake tangent.

I was quoted Friday as saying that I could lend Bill the Caprice to drive to NJ and it would be fine. Sure that applies most of the time but not this time. I barely made it a few miles before the power steering fluid drained itself and I completely lost assist. Fast ratio steering box heavy cars I think are the most demanding in terms of steering assist. Even at 40 mph just swerving gently on the road requires an uncanny amount of effort. And the feel is actually worse with no assist - it makes the box feel substantially sloppier. Power steering racks may feel alright with no assist - steering boxes are totally different, unless it is a manual box.

It's always something simple on this car and despite having the original power steering pump at 312k, I knew it would be a leak. And it was.

That is the cooler loop which only the 9C1 cars got.

Rockauto doesn't seem to carry that. Custom bending it from some line stock doesn't really appeal to me. Is this the death of the Caprice over what would be a cheap fix? I'll hunt around and see if I can find the whole thing somewhere. I actually didn't look where the other ends go.

[kevm14]

Adam may recognize this. It actually doesn't look too rusty.

Ed even gave me some new O-rings from his assortment. So I'll get to this at some point. I won't be defeated this easily.

[kevm14]

Ah. Of course. This will not work.

94-96 P/S pump is totally different and on the other side of the engine. Line is completely incompatible.

It came to me while I was looking at it. Mine runs all the way across the radiator and back. This one goes across but adds an extra half run because if it went straight between the pump and box, it would only be half a loop. So they added a sig-zag in there. Which is why it looked strange to me. My car does not have any of that.

To think I started out today with such high hopes and ended with multiple failures. Sigh.

Pretty sure I will end up cutting out the bad section and ghetto splicing a short length of hose in with a bunch of hose clamps, a la my transmission cooler repair history (which works fine).

[Adam]

You could use that other host as an upgrade for the Roadmaster.

[kevm14]

That is true. Then it would be ready for autocross.

[kevm14]

I got a round tuit. Snooze.

Anyway.

Naturally the first thing was to see if it even started. It has been sitting since ~ 22-Oct so we're talking 3 months. Cold months. Buried in snow more than once. Did it start? Of COURSE it did. Ran just fine, too. However, man handling it into the garage with zero power steering was NOT easy at all. But after some ridiculous number of Austin Powers like back and forths, I got it in (she said that) and on the ramps.

I decided where to cut the line at either end. I did have to remove a mounting tab thing. It was a 10mm bolt through one of those speed nuts, on the lower radiator support. I soaked it in PB but didn't feel like waiting for it to actually do anything. And.....it came right out. No shit. Once I did that, I was able to start cutting the line.

The next shot is the hose installed, a whopping 30 minutes from when I made my first cut. I tried at first to use some hose I had but it was a size too small. I ended up cutting the hose off of the power steering line that Adam gave me, which fit perfectly.

To make it an even more "quality" repair I threw some split loom on so it wouldn't bump into the radiator support. I got this loom off my old engine harness which has donated much loom over the past decade+.

Two clamps on one end and a clamp plus a spring clamp on the other end. It's just a return so it should be fine.

From the top. Compare to first post with pic.

Next, I added fluid until it was sort of over full by the dipstick. Jacked it off the ramps. Turned steering wheel back and forth 20 times to bleed. Checked again. Topped off to the right level. Done.

Test drive. Works mint. Original power steering pump, too. Take that, modern cars.

[kevm14]

I went to Bill's house then we went on an extended test drive. Everything was normal. Engine temp, oil pressure, everything. That's how it always is with this car of course.

Didn't even check the oil. Didn't check tire pressure. Still on the 17s but they are all seasons. The big advantage they provide is cold weather performance. If I had good summers on it, it would have been dangerous to bomb down the back roads as we did.

Then something started clunking and slamming. It appears that both muffler hangers have broken off or something. Or the U clamp did. It might just be the U clamp. I'll have to back it on ramps and take a look tomorrow. But the best part about that is, I bought those two new brackets (and hangers) for my Roadmaster and I will just use the brackets on this car to hang the exhaust back. I found the parts new in box, shipping label dated September. I can probably find the post where I said I was going to order them.

Two of these:
http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php ... 27&jsn=455

I will have to go buy a 2-1/2" U clamp somewhere. Other than that I think that is what is wrong with the exhaust and hopefully the bad slamming noise we heard. Most likely it was rusting and the spirited driving on bumpy roads finished it off. I may get to this tomorrow.

On a side note, it could probably use two rear shocks. The right rear in particular seems to damp kind of crappy. They are lifetime I think so I just have to figure out how to use that. Maybe through Shox.com?

I was telling Adam last week that I was starting to miss the car. It was nice to drive it again. I definitely still want to stay in the B-body game. It is nice to work on simple vehicles. Just have to keep them from rusting away.