Changes PAS fluid, anyone?

reeac

A month or so ago I realised that my nearly 18 year old Jag. Is still on its original power steering fluid. The handbook gives no mention of changing this fluid. I tried dipping a strip of folded paper towel into the fluid but examination showed no evidence of suspended dirt so maybe it's OK. Anyone heard of this fluid being changed as part of a maintenance schedule?

gilbert_and_sullivan

Those who care for their cars will change it when it starts to look dirty, most people never change it, its not something i've ever seen in a service book and since most people can't be bothered to even check their engine or gearbox/axle oils i daresay people like us are in a tiny minority.

If you cared enough to do so, it would be easy to use a clean empty gearbox filler bottle or similar as a vacuum and suck the old oil out, then wipe out the reservoir and refill with fresh oil, its not easy to flush the whole system unless you get into disconnecting pipes, and with the engine running you'd be amazed at how fast it pumps out, so not recommended for the home mechanic.
If you renewed the reservoir contents every couple of years you would be doing far more than most owners ever would., and would keep mostly fresh oil in the system.

Limey

gilbert_and_sullivan wrote: »

If you cared enough to do so, it would be easy to use a clean empty gearbox filler bottle or similar as a vacuum and suck the old oil out, then wipe out the reservoir and refill with fresh oil, its not easy to flush the whole system unless you get into disconnecting pipes, and with the engine running you'd be amazed at how fast it pumps out, so not recommended for the home mechanic.
If you renewed the reservoir contents every couple of years you would be doing far more than most owners ever would., and would keep mostly fresh oil in the system.

Good call I hadn't thought of doing it that way, mine needs changing in the Celica and it's a grotty job to do.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Blimey, i hadn't realised there might be someone else out there left who looks after their cars, nice to know.

I use the same technique on my two Japanese auto boxes, without pumping new in and old out via the cooler pipes where they enter the radiator with the engine running its almost impossible to drain the torque converters, so i do a single sumpful at a time, sump holds about 5 litres, so drain and refill, run for a few days repeat, then i do a single sumpful once a year to keep the overall fluid reasonably fresh.

Works for me, the gearboxes are silky, Dexron 3 is cheap enough if you buy it 20 litres at a time, and the used oil is certainly clean enough for fence treating.

Also do the vacuuming trick when i bleed the brakes through, use a clean squeezy bottle with washer pipe attached, you can get most of the fluid out of the reservoir so makes a much quicker flush through.

Stoke

There's a few easy ways you can do it. One of the easiest is to suck it out using an oil extraction tool. That's how I did it. Took about 15 minutes.

Limey

gilbert_and_sullivan wrote: »

Blimey, i hadn't realised there might be someone else out there left who looks after their cars, nice to know.

:laugh: I feel guilty if I'm late on a service for the car, the PAS fluid change has been bugging me for a while. It's not a system I enjoy working on though.

The Celica may be a £500 'banger' but she puts a smile on my face when I drive and deserves to be well treated for it. :cool: There are probably more folks out there than you think who care about their cars.

reeac

Thanks for the replies. I'd like to change the auto gearbox oil in the Jag. but it's ZF with no drain plug - you're supposed to remove the sump, renew the big flat filter in there and refill whilst running the engine and moving through all the gears whilst measuring the oil temperature.Costs around £500 if done by an Indy. specialist. I think that I'm going to leave it until the gear changes show signs of getting sluggish - so far (14 years under my ownership and 90,000 miles since new) they've been impeccable.

Prothet_of_Doom

My wife has a Generation 1 2001 Mini Cooper. This has the rover built manual gearbox. What they call the "Midlands Gearbox". After 3 years BMW forced a redesign of later cars to use a Getrag box, due to unacceptably high warranty claims.
Next week I intend to change the gearbox oil, as a precaution and "inspection"

bigjl

I did the suction out the reservoir then refill on my Jaguar.

The fluid that came out was filthy.

It had done over 100k in less than 3 yrs at the time and it had not been changed once by the main dealer.

Didn't make a huge difference but the very slight pump noise on full lock did cease.

The clean fluid do expose a pinhole leak in the pipe coming out of the bottom of the reservoir which I reckon shows how much crud there must have been in there.

I bought the OE Mobil PAS fluid from the local Jaguar dealer as I couldn't find it anywhere else.

I probably drained and refilled about 4/5 times.

Nearly a year later the fluid was still nice and clean.

bigjl

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

My wife has a Generation 1 2001 Mini Cooper. This has the rover built manual gearbox. What they call the "Midlands Gearbox". After 3 years BMW forced a redesign of later cars to use a Getrag box, due to unacceptably high warranty claims.
Next week I intend to change the gearbox oil, as a precaution and "inspection"

I read somewhere that part of the problem with the early Minis with the Midland box was the size and width of the wheel/tyre combo.

Putting a higher load through the gearbox than it was designed for.

The Midland box was not the best but it certainly failed more often in the Mini.

bigjl

reeac wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I'd like to change the auto gearbox oil in the Jag. but it's ZF with no drain plug - you're supposed to remove the sump, renew the big flat filter in there and refill whilst running the engine and moving through all the gears whilst measuring the oil temperature.Costs around £500 if done by an Indy. specialist. I think that I'm going to leave it until the gear changes show signs of getting sluggish - so far (14 years under my ownership and 90,000 miles since new) they've been impeccable.

90k miles is getting to the age where it really needs a fluid and filter change.

Not sure what gearbox is fitted to your car but I assume it is the 6 speed as fitted to the Disco etc?

If that is the case the filter is part of the sump.

If I remember correctly it has a drain plug but what it doesn't have is a dipstick or filler.