Might have sprung a leak!

[shima]

Hey fellas,

Hoping to ask your opinion on this... here's the short sequence of events:

1. Drove the K5 to Winter Park on Saturday. It did just fine. Parked it in the garage when I got home.
2. Went out to the garage Sunday to move the Blazer and found a small pool of yellow fluid on the floor. Based on the location beneath the truck, I guessed that it was either brake fluid or power steering fluid.
3. Parked the Blazer out on the street because I had to do some other work on my daily.
4. Checked the Blazer today. No new fluid puddles beneath it from what I could tell. Popped open the hood and looked at the master cylinder. Looked fine.
5. Took a look at the power steering reservoir and I was high on fluid (well above cold line).
6. Took a look at the power steering box and took these two pictures:

Steering Box Side

• shima
• Jan 30, 2018

Block Side

• shima
• Jan 30, 2018

Both ends of that one hose were visibly wet / stained from fluid. I am hoping that I had a little too much PS fluid in the system. When driving to and from the mountains, it got real hot and overflowed a little bit. The hoses looked fine, but I didn't look that closely.

Does that sound possible? Anything else I should be sure to check?

Thanks all.

 

[Bent77]

Run it till it dies

 

[ChrisPerry]

Does the fluid mix with water (brake fluid) or float on water (ps fluid) or taste salty (urine)?

 

[shima]

Does the fluid mix with water (brake fluid) or float on water (ps fluid) or taste salty (urine)?

Hah, I can't tell you - I wiped it up from the garage floor with a towel and didn't see a pool out on the street. I'll do the test if I see another pool.

 

[diesel4me]

I thought the same thing...some critter peed under your truck!..

P/S fluid is usually red ATF or a brownish color,Coolant could look yellow if it was mixed with different brands or the red stuff GM used in late model vehicles,and motor oil is a brownish-yellow color..

It could be your P/S pump just peuked out some excess fluid after it warmed up and expanded..

 

[shima]

I thought the same thing...some critter peed under your truck!..

P/S fluid is usually red ATF or a brownish color,Coolant could look yellow if it was mixed with different brands or the red stuff GM used in late model vehicles,and motor oil is a brownish-yellow color..

It could be your P/S pump just peuked out some excess fluid after it warmed up and expanded..

Yeah man, I'm thinking that's what happened. Had too much in there and it threw some up. Hopefully it didn't cause harm to my hoses.

 

[diesel4me]

Nahh,I doubt it would...the "tank" has no real pressure,not enough to harm the hoses anyways..

One day I was replacing tie rod ends on my truck and I had the front wheels jacked up--I turned the wheels by grabbing a tire and got a P/S fluid shampoo,I guess fluid peukes out of the cap when you turn the wheels with the engine not running..some went right in my eyes too,and I'm paranoid about them now that I had cataracts removed and artificial lenses installed...makes me reluctant to work on anything now..