Ok,
My truck died on me about 10 miles from home. My son towed me home. SO,
I was having to steer without the engine running. When we got home and popped the hood, we saw power steering fluid all over everything on the drivers side of the engine bay.
I saw that is was a dark red color and I didn't have any ATF at home but I did have a full bottle of regular PS fluid. (label included Ford...)
I sucked out everything I could out of the reservoir with a syringe and filled it with the PS fluid. (engine not running)
Today I got my truck running and when I tried a test drive in my yard, it sounded like the PS pump was takin a dive on me.
I checked the fluid, and it was all foamy and really dark. I let it sit a few minutes, then turned the wheels from lock to lock a few times. The fluid was low then and I topped it off.
Another cycle of lock to lock operation and checked it again. Not low this time but the pump really sounds like crap.
Did I kill it when I was being towed home?
I'm planning on draining it all out and refilling with Mercon/Type F ATF tomorrow just to see but I'm really thinking the pump might be shot.
??
Jim

 

Hey Jim,

I've read that foamy PS fluid can be a sign that there's a leak or some sort of seal failure allowing air to enter/get sucked into the system OR it's that there's air in the system that still needs to be worked out. But I'm no mechanic.

I'm wondering if maybe you pumped some air into the lines by steering it dry or mostly empty? I'm not sure. I would think that since you steered with the engine off, it's unlikely you damaged the PS pump since the pump wouldn't be running. I guess there's the possibility that there is some other issue going on with the pump like you said. How many lock to lock wheel rotations did you do and was the car lifted at that time? It took way more than I initially thought to bleed air from the system when I was trying to do a flush and fill earlier today and I'm not even sure I got all of it out..

Hope someone more qualified than me chimes in here since I am not the most knowledgeable. A flush and fill like you're planning on doing sounds like a good idea and if that fails, take it in to the mechanic. I suspect I'll probably have to take my Ranger in to the mechanic for my own PS issues.

Good luck Jim!

EDIT: OH WOW, I did not pay attention to the date when this was posted! Seems I'm super late to replying! Lol, sorry Jim, hope you got it worked out though!