Power Steering

[talkingfish]

Guys,

Power steering fluid is leaking from the top of the reservoir - is there a reason for this? It's not overfilled... could there be an air lock or is the pump on the way out? The pump has always been quite noisy, always thought that was a characteristic of these cars...

Help please as it's messing up my nice clean engine bay, lol!!

[MatBrown]

Changing the pump often doesn't solve the problem, It might be the rack causing pressure issues.

[Minichapperz]

my 19 16v did the same when i was gunning it hard squirted onto the underside of the bonnet the pipes were pretty hot so i put it down to temperature as it was rimming the bottle. let it cool down and the level dropped

[redeye83]

I've got the same prob at the mo too. Changed the pump and still the same. Goin to change the rack soon as leakin a bit so hopefully that should sort it out.

[chip]

I think they always do it if you drive them really hard, the system just doent seem to be able to cope, I think I might add a radiator to mine.

[cliokiz]

Never thought about adding a radiator but I guess it can only be a good thing (or another place for the system to leak!)

With the pump being so close to the block it must get extremely hot, warming up the fluid as it passes through. Plus the pipes on the rack will be hot from the exhaust.

[chip]

Lots of cars run a power steeering radiator of some sort, in a lot of cases its as simply as just a metal pipe which deliberately is longer than it needs to be to give it a bit more surface area, no reason why it shouldnt work on the clio too.
Mind you, so does just topping up the reservoir after a trackday which is my current solution, lol.

[talkingfish]

so the rack could be buggered then???