Air in Steering from turning lock to lock ?

[dkcase]

Borrowed From another Topic:

quote:

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Originally posted by drive it forever:
To purge the air out of the system, jack the car up, turn the wheel lock to lock 3 times with the car off, check fluid leval add if needed, start car, keeping at 2k rpm's, turn the wheel slowly lock to lock 10 times, let the car idle 3 minutes and shut off, lower the car and check the fluid leval again.

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Odd thing.
My daughter's 99 Ford Ranger. Inspecting the brake pads yesterday. Jackstands under the frame, wheels off.
I turned the wheel lock to lock --engine off --to get a view of front and back of both calipers.
After a couple times in and out of the truck there was steering fluid on the ground.
It had somehow forced itself back up into the pump and overflowed, and pushed the screw cap loose.
I had never had anything like this happen, or heard to watch out for it.
When started, the steering was very rough, and made noise like a lot of air was in it. HUH ?
I drove it around several times, tight turns, etc. When I stopped, a lot of small bubbles were coming out in the reservoir. I let that happen for about 15 minutes, and topped it off with some new fluid, and I think it is OK now.

Anybody seen this, or have a theory ?

 

[punisher]

Happens all the time. We ran into it frequently in the shop. Keep the reservoir topped, with engine running turn the wheels lock to lock and center the wheel, shut the engine off and let it set for 15 or so minutes and repeat as needed. Sometimes it is a pain to bleed Ford PS systems (with the C3 plastic reservoir pumps).

There was a TSB and a supplied vacuum bleeder (basically a rubber plug and vac fitting) that fit into the pump fill tube. You cranked the car up and applied vacuum to the fitting and turned the wheel lock to lock slowly to pull the bubbles out of the fluid. Personally it is just easier to let it set for awhile and let the bubbles work out by themselves, but sometimes we had time constraints to consider.