Power Steering exploded? And..

[supraguy17]

1. So I've been noticing lately that when I start the car in the morning it seems to make a loud whining noise from the ps belt and will continue until the car is fairly warmed up. It's starting to get to around 40 degrees at night and morning up here. I also noticed that I was having a bit of a ps leak, small but enough to notice about every 2 weeks. Over the course of about 2-3 months I'm now on my 3rd bottle. All seemed to be going good and the leak seemed to be going away, until today.

So this morning like usual go outside start the car, whine... then it went away car drove like usual park in my spot at work and don't start or touch the car till I'm out at 5. Backed out of my pace looked and was said hmm thats an awfully large puddle, touched my finger in it smelt ps fluid... drove home car drove fine every here and there belt would whine when turning, pull into driveway shut off the car and pop the hood, bam power steering fluid everywhere?! Somehow the cap came loose and off either when I started the car or while driving and it soaked everything as seen in the pictures below.

What the hell would have caused this? I unbolted the resovior and checked the lines and neither had cracks or leaks so I just cleaned it up, bolted it up, and everything seems to be fine now.. WTF

2. After this whole ordeal I later left and hopped on the highway to get to dinner, did a little spirited run, well what you can do with a t25, and pulled into hannaford and popped the hood to see if any of he ps issue came back and noticed my thermostat was steaming and coolant was dripping out?? Opened my overflow tank and it was completely full... checked the gauge in the cluster and it was at normal, hooked laptop up and did a quick log and coolant was right at 210-216 sitting and stayed right at that on the drive after.. Is this normal or what? I've never really noticed the tank so full before but haven't necessarily looked directly for it either.

Just spent $1100 on upgrades and would hate to not be able to put any of it to use! Any help is appreciated!!

 

[tds]

If the power steering fluid was over filled, it could cause it to leak out of the reservoir at the cap. Coolant overflow may of filled up due to radiator cap not sealed up to hold pressure in system or failed cap not holding pressure. What were the mods that were recently done?

 

[T is for TURBO]

I'd be more concerned about the heating issue than the power steering issue, my guess is you didn't put that cap back on all the war. Anyhow, 210-216 is too warm for cruising temps. I would say 210 is okay if your just idling, but while driving it should be cooler. I would start looking for other problems. Start with a compression test to check the condition of your head gasket. It's easy to do any will help you narrow your problems down. It could also just be a bad radiator cap.

 

[supraguy17]

1. I forgot to upload the pics..oops, but anyways I think I figured the power sterring problem out, I have been using the Lucas brand power steering stop leak in its entirty rather then traditional power steering fluid and since its been getting down to the 40's at night here I realized this morning when I checked that at the night the thick fluid is getting almost frozen and slushie like in the morning then when it heats up it gets to its normal liquid phase and thats when the fluid leaks out of the cap, I'll be empting the resovior and putting tradition power sterring fluid in and see if that fixes it.

2. I appreciate the fast responses! The most recent of the upgrades has been fpr and FIC 650's where put in, I dialed them all in and set base pressure and everything was good. After I noticed the tank was full and the cap was steaming I let the car sit for about 15 mins and tightened the cap as much as I could. Drove it home and checked again, the overflow tank was 3/4 full but the cap wasn't steaming this time, will check again when I get home from a good 15 min drive from home.