Power Steering Milkshake
 

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j2...0/photo2-1.jpg

Air in the system? Time for a new pump? Overuse from HPDE at NJMP?

Yuck. Cheap start would be changing the fluid. Usually its bubbling and frothy when air is getting in the system.

I figured as much. As Creeper can attest to, much of my PS fluid has escaped the reservoir. Definitely explains the air in the system. I have fresh fluid going in tomorrow, but I don't want to do the turkey baster method, as I want as much of that frothy stuff out before adding fresh fluid.

Some stock LS1s have PS coolers (early SS and WS6s and at some point, became standard) and mine does as well. It doesn't do much to be honest, and this is all just a bandaid until I am ready to send out my PS pump to get rebuilt.

Disconnect a line and let it drain out as much as possible.

Yeah, it's air. Is it noisy as well?

Hard to tell from the pic but it could be contamination from the PS cooler having corroded/perforated allowing coolant to mix in. How does your cooling system overflow tank look?

Gonna do that tomorrow I suppose.

Nope. She runs like a top.

Popped the cap on the radiator. It's clean.

yes, but coolant is thinner than pump fluid, also coolant is under pressure when hot, small pinholes in cooler could allow coolant to enter pump fluid since it is a thinner liquid and under pressure.

normally air in lines it would have a leak and also whine like a mfkr.

The level of the PS fluid is definitely low and the fluid has escaped, but I have assumed from boiling over the cap. I'm pretty sure there is no leak. I don't really know how I would go about checking either.

If the lines/connections look wet/sweaty, its leaking :)

The p/s cooler is part of the radiator or is it external?

You might have burned the impellor for the ps pump if there is air in there. On my LT1 in the 68 it kept foaming the ps fluid but you could also hear it. Yours looks like some other fluid got mixed in, not just air.

It wraps around the radiator hose. That is about it.

I thought first that my pump could be busted, but I figured that because my pump doesn't whine and that the power steering works fine it was not that.

The fact that the fluid is low and that I took it to the track lead me to believe that it was just air. How can I test to see if I'm leaking coolant in there? The car will be sitting for three days, can I just drain a bit of coolant out of the bottom of the radiator to see what the coolant at the bottom looks like? From what I understand from Kurt, if there is cross contamination, shouldn't the bottom of the radiator have some of the power steering fluid?

AutoZone has a cooling system pressure tester on loaner program that should make diagnosis a snap. It clips in place of your rad cap, you pump it up like a bike tire pump until the gauge reads whatever your cap is rated at (usually ~16psig) and it should hold that nearly indefinitely. If the gauge drops, you have a leak.

Keep re-pressurizing it enough and you might eventually force a bubble into your PS reservoir, but I'm speculating on that.

I'll try that tomorrow. To clarify, if there is a leak between the two, the cooling system would lose pressure, correct?

I pressurized the system to about 18 pounds and after about 10 minutes it had lost about a pound. All the while, I was looking at the power steering reservoir and I saw no bubbles.

Adequate?

Edit: I would expect a PS contamination to look more like this: http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/genera...oler-pics.html

I'm concluding air in teh system and calling it a day. Might just do a bypass of the OEM cooler while I'm at it.

If you ask me. It looks like vanilla.