Power Steering Fluid "Blowby"

[BlownMX5]

I find that p/s fluid easily blows by the o-ring on the dipstick when I'm running on track. I suppose it is due to the extended time at high RPMs. So far, my "solution" is to wrap a rag around the dipstick handle and ziptie it on. Hardly ideal. Does anyone have a better idea?

[Satisaii]

Have you considered de-powering the rack? That is what I did on my 99 track car.

[Toby Weir-Jones]

It's sort of a self-correcting problem. Once you've spilled enough fluid that it doesn't spill any more, it stops spilling. You will still have fluid in the system at this point.

[BlownMX5]

Really? I'm not sure I've ever let it get that low. I'd hate for it to cavitate, wouldn't that be harmful to the pump? As far as de-powering it, yes I have considered that, but I really like the feel of it as it is.

[Toby Weir-Jones]

My personal experience (hardly an exhaustive sample, I agree) is that no harm came of it on my car despite puking all the PS fluid it wanted. I did eventually remove PS and put a manual rack in but not due to any known damage. There was still some fluid in there, I had never bothered to top it up.

twj

[FormerDatsun510Man]

It is puking the excess fluid because it expands when it heats up. The solution would be to increase the amount of air space you have to allow for the expansion. One way of course is to allow the fluid level to be lower as Toby suggests. Another way, if you are concerned about having not enough fluid, would be to add a sort of overflow bottle to the reservoir. I never did this, but a thought would be to drill a fitting towards the top below the O-ring and routing this to another bottle.

I depowered my P/S rack by disassembling it and removing the o-rings. I really like it, it is surprising how one gets used to it. I recently drove a P/S assisted Miata at a track day and it really threw me for a loop because it was so light and I couldn't feel the road. Like I was moving a joystick LOL. Yet, when I first depowered the rack it felt heavy like you wouldn't believe! Actually, it did lighten up a good deal when I put some new tires on it. A manual rack may be a better choice than depowering the P/S rack. The only "problem" I could see is the lower ratio which yields more turns lock-lock (and of course is the reason the steering effort would be lighter). I haven't driven a manual rack yet though so I am not sure there :).

Bill