I have hydroboost, 2 wheel drive steering box cause of hi cross over steering. Will be doing alot of slow off-road driving. How to determine if I should run a remote power steering cooler? Right now I'm gonna be redoing tranny cooling lines and remote cooler with fan and I ran across remote cooler for power steering.
CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.
How to determine if I need a remote power steering cooler?
- Thread starter PHC CK5
- Start date
Run the cooler. Im putting one on my Blazer. It gives more capacity as well as cools the fluid.
Yep
gm started doing it on the last few years of some of our trucks . it was just a loop of hard line clamped to the bottom of the core support .
yes run the cooler as your doing 2 loads on the system with both brakes and steering . also run a good power steering rated fluid it will help also .
yes run the cooler as your doing 2 loads on the system with both brakes and steering . also run a good power steering rated fluid it will help also .
H20 Toie
1/2 ton status
Well it sure isn't going to hurt so i would say go for it.
Just mounted mine and hooked it up, took about a pint more fluid
urbex
1/2 ton status
Something I've noticed over the years - much like the exhaust backpressure myths ("you NEED backpressure for the engine to run right!!", when the truth is that you need to maintain velocity), there seems to be very few people that really understand the thermodynamics as it relates to radiators, heat transfer, and how to size radiators/coolers along with "when do I need more?"....so you'll get a lot of "just put it in, it can't hurt, shove the biggest one you can in there". Which aren't necessarily wrong, but don't answer the question either.
The simple answer to "when do I need the extra cooler?" is - "when you're experiencing fluid overheating/burning", which often shows as either smelling burnt fluid, or the fluid boiling/overflowing the cap. The hard side of this is that much like automatic trans fluid, once you've reached that point, the damage is already done. The harder side of it is - how many people have the ability to monitor fluid temps in real time?
You can get a rough idea of how the system is running with one of the cheap non contact thermometers. Go out and run the truck hard down a technical trail, stop, and shoot temps off the pump, resevoir, steering box, and lines in different spots. The usual, absolutely top of the scale temp, you'd want to see is 275*. Chances are, even without the cooler, you won't be coming anywhere near that. For me, if I start eclipsing 200*, that's when I start thinking about dropping an aux cooler in. That's also when I start looking at the system as a whole, as things like kinked or collapsed lines, or other restrictions in the system can also significantly raise the temp of the fluid due to excessive pump pressure. I'm generally not seeing high temps, even in my crawlers or any typical daily driver. Now when I get the 4K pound camper loaded up on the big Ford, and start running it down a trail, then yes, the temps can rise real fast due to the additional weight load on the truck.
The simple answer to "when do I need the extra cooler?" is - "when you're experiencing fluid overheating/burning", which often shows as either smelling burnt fluid, or the fluid boiling/overflowing the cap. The hard side of this is that much like automatic trans fluid, once you've reached that point, the damage is already done. The harder side of it is - how many people have the ability to monitor fluid temps in real time?
You can get a rough idea of how the system is running with one of the cheap non contact thermometers. Go out and run the truck hard down a technical trail, stop, and shoot temps off the pump, resevoir, steering box, and lines in different spots. The usual, absolutely top of the scale temp, you'd want to see is 275*. Chances are, even without the cooler, you won't be coming anywhere near that. For me, if I start eclipsing 200*, that's when I start thinking about dropping an aux cooler in. That's also when I start looking at the system as a whole, as things like kinked or collapsed lines, or other restrictions in the system can also significantly raise the temp of the fluid due to excessive pump pressure. I'm generally not seeing high temps, even in my crawlers or any typical daily driver. Now when I get the 4K pound camper loaded up on the big Ford, and start running it down a trail, then yes, the temps can rise real fast due to the additional weight load on the truck.
red EOD
1/2 ton status
Power steering fluid is based off of hydraulic oil (similar to how ATF is based) which has an ideal operating temp of around 140-165F and would last a very long time if the temp never exceeded that. Higher the temps get above that the more often it needs to be changed which lets be honest, very few people ever change that oil until the pump dies because of a lack of lubrication.
Common design in mobile hydraulic applications is a 1:1 ratio along with a cooler. For every gallon the pump is rated for, the reservoir contains 1 gallon. So a 3 gpm pump gets a cooler and a reservoir holding 3 gallons of oil which works well enough to usually keep the oil near the ideal temps. Power steering systems for some reason get screwed with a tiny reservoir and inadequate cooling, usually running temps of over 200F.
Cooler plumbed into the return from the steering box is a good idea, filter would be good as well.
Common design in mobile hydraulic applications is a 1:1 ratio along with a cooler. For every gallon the pump is rated for, the reservoir contains 1 gallon. So a 3 gpm pump gets a cooler and a reservoir holding 3 gallons of oil which works well enough to usually keep the oil near the ideal temps. Power steering systems for some reason get screwed with a tiny reservoir and inadequate cooling, usually running temps of over 200F.
Cooler plumbed into the return from the steering box is a good idea, filter would be good as well.
Just running it won't hurt but if you wonder if you need it, like urbex says, run it hard and check it. We just stick a candy thermometer in the reservoir. Pretty direct reading of what you want to know.
