PS fluid change

Last couple of trips out the steering has been a bit jerky when it's first started from cold.  Thinking the PS fluid probably needs changing.

What's the best way to do it on the HiAce?  Just suck it out of the reservoir and refill, turn wheels a few times (and repeat a few times), or is there a drain somewhere?

I don't know

But what solved the jerky steering for me was to have the belt tightened. I had the same symptoms, just after starting.

Belt seems okay, I retensioned it about 1000 miles after fitting. What a pain of job that is! But I'll double check, just to be sure.

The reservoir has a thin gauze filter across it so you cannot stick a tube into it without damaging it,

I've looked at the pipework underneath and decided that the best idea was to remove the actual reservoir which has a pipe clamp underneath (feed) and to the side (return), empty and clean it and then refill.

Then run the van for a while and do it again just to get a bit more new fluid in there.

Thanks GPW, that's a pain. Will have a poke about in more detail at the weekend then.

My PS fluid reservoir did not have any mesh, so I was able to empty it with a syringe. Gave it a few flushes but then ran out of fluid, so hopefully have done enough

TwentyOneThirtyFive wrote:

My PS fluid reservoir did not have any mesh, so I was able to empty it with a syringe.  Gave it a few flushes but then ran out of fluid, so hopefully have done enough

That's handy!
May want to get a new one at some stage, the filter is quite interesting:

The fluid is sucked out of the bottom and pumped back into the top, so the filter is constantly working to deposit any bits on top of the gauze, and when the gauze gets blocked it overflow and tells you in that way that the filter is blocked.

TwentyOneThirtyFive wrote:

My PS fluid reservoir did not have any mesh, so I was able to empty it with a syringe.

Same change I made. I'll look into a replacement mesh.

Easy to change fluid disconnect return pipe put end in container, put new fluid in tonic bottle invert with end in reservoir run engine till clean fluid appears in container, stop engine, top up to correct level reconnect return pipe dispose of old fuid ethicly job done.

That's a good idea! Thanks!