| Power steering fluid leak - coil cooler replacement | |
Came to fire up the Rangie after being away on a trip for a few weeks and pow - heavy steering. The Rangie had dumped a load of power steering fluid all over the garage floor. I decided to roll up my sleeves and fix the old girl, first thing to do was to find where the fluid was leaking from. Not easy with the car fully assembled, so I started by reading up on some old threads here for ideas before getting stuck in. The Powerful UK youtube video where they strip the front end of an L322 for a facelift was also helpful:
Still more to come off, including slam panel and the lower support sheetmetal:
After about four hours (I was going slowly, not taken the front end apart before so was learning as I went), I got to this point, where I could see clearly that the fluid was leaking from the 'coil cooler' power steering radiator - the small, thin radiator with the leaves lodged at the top:
Time for a new one, from Keith Gotts who are pretty local. Cost was about £160 including VAT for the part:
I invested in a pair of Knipex hose clamp pliers, as the spring steel clamps on the hydraulic hoses were tricky to get off with the pliers I had. The Knipex ones are the dog's danglies, expensive at £48 but well worth having for this job and all the future ones:
New coil cooler installed and leak checked. At least this new one is painted, it might last longer than the old one. Interestingly I checked the car's service history and it had already had one replacement coil cooler at 41,000 miles, when RRUK owned the car. It's now at 154,000 miles, so this last coil cooler lasted fairly well by comparison. It sits out front in all the road spray and salt, no surprise they corrode and eventually leak. The hydraulic system needed about 1.2 litres to top back up:
Work in progress:
And all back together, after about eight hours labour - should be about half this time next time round:
The failed coil cooler on the bench:
It was leaking from the upper pipe, at the bend; probably from a corrosion pin-hole:
Hope this write up helps if you end up replacing yours. I think a garage would charge about four hours labour on this job, so worth doing yourself if you can.
fanders
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