Hi Guys
Hope someone can help but recently i have noticed drops of power steering
fluid(well its red) on garage floor at front of engine,have had a look but cant see
much and was hoping one of you guys may tell me "yeh really common problem
its the ........." all i can see is the fluid seems to acumulate on the lip where sump
meets engine block along front of engine.
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks in advance
VIC

 

Vic,

Please add vehicle details to your Signature. Only the really stubborn like me will bother to go and search for them - others will just move on!

Here's the Power Steering layout:



(click on the image to enlarge it)


Flow is from Reservoir (3) - Pump (2) - Rack (1) - Cooler (4) - back to Reservoir (3).

Leaks are usually from the swaged ends of the Cooler feed and return pipes going into the Cooler although damage to the Cooler itself is not unknown.

You're going to have to clean the area off and view the vehicle from below to find out exactly where the fluid is leaking.

Graham

 

My guess is a coolant leak rather than power steering fluid - I had the same on my car in exactly that position - and I thought it was power steering at first - that OAT fluid is quite oily between the fingertips. Mine was leaking from the thermostat tower, filling up the gap between the water pump and block then trickling down to the sump - just to make things interesting it was intermittent too. Probably worth checking the water pump and by pass hose etc. - all known weak points.

 

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ng-leak-67615/


Not an uncommon issue, easy fix if this is where your leak is...

 

Spoogy stuff; Exactly the same issue! Returning from 3 weeks holiday I find quite some oily redish liquid under the left front corner of the '97 xk8; AND my powersteering resevoir is way below the mark;

Did a camera inspection this afternoon. pretty sure hoses and connectors are all intact, and so seems to be the pulley shaft seal. So does that leave the gasket as the only possible culprit?

 

Thanks Guys
Will investigate at the weekend and let you know the outcome.
Thanks for the help
vic

 

Update: went to the garage today, they said cooling liquid without even looking... That's just the most common thing. So the tech had a closer look, and could only see the a drop of ATF and some ATF sweat around the pump.

We refilled the resevoir,and I had a 300 km joyful ride. Coming home I checked the resevoir, still at top level! I decided to clean the garage floor for further monitoring; And to my amasement the puddle on the floor resolved in plain cold water! Only a small spot was oil, and yes, that's ATF.

So what seems to have happened: During the hols we had extremely high temperatures at home. I guess the cooling liquid simply flooded from the system by overflow? And there's a minor ATF leak at the bearing seal of the powersteering pump, but I can live with that for a long time. I will try and find some dope to soften the seal. Anyone any experience with that?

Cheers,

Kees

 

There are several brands of ATF stopleak available.