Power steering leak at the reservoir cap

[Digger]

I'm wondering if I have cap leak as well. Although the tabs are not broken the metal ring is pretty rusty. It looks like PS fluid is on the top surface of the reservoir as well as top of the cap. Unless my car flips over at night, it would seem strange that a faulty pump seal would cause that type of spray or leakage??? Thank you. Attachment 17038Attachment 17037

More than one pump seal can leak and it looks like you have the most common leak for this type of pump. The measuring tube of your cap looks black and should be clean and translucent enough to see the green power steering fluid that hangs in the tube when you pull the cap to check the fluid level. Your tube looks like it has been sitting in dirty oil and with this pump being direct driven the engine oil has a bad habit of sneaking into the steering fluid. When the drive shaft seal gets weak oil overfilling the steering fluid resivour will give you this kind of problem.

[zro789]

Thank you for the response. So - not only do I have a PS fluid leak, but I have oil getting into my reservoir? Would you recommend changing the entire pump? Would I also need the O-ring kit? I'm not sure if that comes with the purchase of a pump. My local saab repair shop (that's serviced all my saabs and VWs) - quoted me $500 (ish) to replace the pump. My car has about 98k miles on it. I can't drive it as it is and I do love Utube and could try to fix it myself - but if the parts are easily over $350 - it might be worth it to have an experienced shop fix this problem.

[100%Saab]

The power steering fluid is under pressor in the reservoir. A leak at the cap should give you fluid on top of the reservoir, low power steering fluid level and drips under the power steering reservoir. If non power steering fluid is sprayed from somewhere else it might land on top of the reservoir, but not likely. How did the ring get rusty?

[100%Saab]

Thank you for the response. So - not only do I have a PS fluid leak, but I have oil getting into my reservoir? Would you recommend changing the entire pump? Would I also need the O-ring kit? I'm not sure if that comes with the purchase of a pump. My local saab repair shop (that's serviced all my saabs and VWs) - quoted me $500 (ish) to replace the pump. My car has about 98k miles on it. I can't drive it as it is and I do love Utube and could try to fix it myself - but if the parts are easily over $350 - it might be worth it to have an experienced shop fix this problem.

Use a dye kit to identify the leak site. I ended up doing 3 different repairs and replaced the pump with the third repair. Identify the leaking fluid like (oil plus power steering fluid or just power steering fluid). You might have more than a single leak. $500 for pump, fluid, and labor is about right. If you do it yourself you don't want to repair one leak to just find a second leak.

[Digger]

A new shaft seal from RockAuto is about $7, a good reman pump is less than $100 and Rock isn't always the best price for some of this stuff. The pump is on the top side of the engine and bolts on to the end of the head. You don't need to remove the resivour and if the steering hoses were a few inches longer you wouldn't need to remove them to replace the seal. Not $500 dollars worth of work even if you replace the pump with new. Remember, this is a GM Echotech engine and finding the Chevy part number for the identical part is like finding money.

New pump or just a new seal, you should flush your steering fluid and the best price I found was Walmart internet, the case of small jugs is about 2 liters and delivered to my door was less than the best 1 liter Euro Fluid price with shipping.

[zro789]

Once I noticed the leak, the car sat for a bit. So, it could be rusted because of time. It doesn't seem like there is any other fluid spray around the surrounding areas. Just on and below reservoir. I wouldn't mind trying to fix this myself. Or at least be supervised by one of my more car-minded nephews. I know I can google all this stuff - but sorting thru endless forums/videos can be a black hole of lost time. It appears there is NO PS fluid in the car. It's all on my garage floor. I'm not sure when i noticed the leak, since this is a 3rd car. I just noticed it was hard to move steering wheel and then all fluid under the car. So - do I need to do a flush to get out any potential oil? Or just to clean it out? Do I need to purchase the mack-daddy PS fluid or for the flush, can I get away from a lesser quality. If so - what would you recommend. At the minimum, I could order new seal and new cap. Is there suppose to be a rubber o-ring for the cap? Mine doesn't have one, but I saw it on esaab parts diagram. So - if it's missing that - could it cause leak under pressure? And once the engine is off and PS not under pressure, shouldn't the leak (if at the cap) stop. If I have no PS fluid/hard to move steering wheel - it could be another leak. Which - leads me to just replace the whole pump. I read both your posts on PS leaks - where you had 3 leaks, it just seems safer to replace the whole pump. And my next question: I couldn't figure out the identical GM ecotec engine power steering pump. Does anyone have a part number for that? It looks like it's used on a lot of models and figuring out which one to use - is like playing darts in the dark. Thanks again for you responses and support. (((I love these cars - this is my 4th))).