Bad power steering pump or hose? Help me out

[Ace2cool]

No doubt you're knowledgeable amc. I'm just working off what I've personally experienced with these cars. I had a slight leak in the suction hose, and replaced it, and without thinking I filled the reservoir with PS fluid, and literally 2 days later I blew the seals in my rack, bad enough that I didn't eve have to have the engine on, could pour ATF in the reservoir and with it sitting, engine off, would have an empty reservoir in 30 mins.

I understand that they're both supposed to be 10W oil, but every PS fluid I've seen behaves differently than ATF. Just seems thicker.

[DCaff300ZX]

No doubt you're knowledgeable amc. I'm just working off what I've personally experienced with these cars. I had a slight leak in the suction hose, and replaced it, and without thinking I filled the reservoir with PS fluid, and literally 2 days later I blew the seals in my rack, bad enough that I didn't eve have to have the engine on, could pour ATF in the reservoir and with it sitting, engine off, would have an empty reservoir in 30 mins.

I understand that they're both supposed to be 10W oil, but every PS fluid I've seen behaves differently than ATF. Just seems thicker.

Agreed, same with mine. I had a leak around one of the rack boots I hadn't researched at the time and as Ace did, inadvertently refilled the reservoir back to full with off the rack PS fluid and after two days I had the same scenario- a HUGE mess. After reading up on the issue a replacement rack and reservoir and using ONLY ATF solved that problem and I do the same with my TT.

[amc49]

If one picked up a fluid with 'stopleak' built into it, that could cause that. I use no stopleak whatsoever in any fluid product I ever use. It intentionally softens seals and see where I'm going with that?, the American public is dumb enough to buy that idea all day long. You gotta read the labels........I got plenty of complaints on how the stopleaks created far more leaks than they fixed when I did my stint in parts.

I put the stopleak up on the same shelf as all the other worthless maintenance chemicals that do nothing but generate cash, like guaranteed to work (at $85) super head gasket repair in a bottle. Or ATX repair in a bottle.