Hi everyone. I have a 98 caravan with 150k miles on it. It has a power steering fluid leak that's getting worse now that it's warming up. It's leaking a small power steering fluid bottle about every three days.

I've never done power steering work before, but I've done most other things so I should be able to handle it. Does anyone have any pointers?

What do the hose fittings look like? Do I need a special tool to remove them like a/c lines, or is it just a flare nut?

Is it likely to be just a hose leaking or could it leak around the rack somewhere?

thanks.

brian

 

Welcome to DF
What you need to do is find the leak first, then repair it. Power steering pretty easy to do! You'll need someone to turn the steering wheel to lock with the engine running and find the leak. Then post then we all can give you some input.

 

First of, you have a 98 caravan and 150K. I did this on my 97 a couple of years ago. The leak turned out to be the high pressure hose. Chances are, you have the same thing. In my case, it was a hole through the rubber part of the high pressure line. But it isnt the only possibility. Not a hard thing to replace. It may be a rust through on the metal tubing as well. Both of these lines have metal tubing in a vulnerable rusting spot. I took out both lines. Replaced the high pressure line. Took out the metal low pressure line cleaned it up and painted it with POR15; replaced the ruubber low pressure hose. Now I went ahead and replaced the power steering pump, since I had everything off anyways. And you might want to do the same thing, but that is your call. I did it as a sort of preventative maintenance. The pump is a little more challenging, since you have tight quarters to get that pump out.