Power steering cooler location?

[muddysub]

I would like to eventually do a Hydro-assist on my suburban so I've been doing some reading online about cylinder diameters, lengths, coolers, box tapping (hehe) etc.
I read in a tech article on pirate that the pump and reservoir should be the highest component in the steering system. that everything else should be located below that point to prevent cavitation. I've never heard that before and my cooler is currently mounted higher than the pump and reservoir and it whines a little but it's moving 37" tires. Is that going to cause any issues or is that just somebody's theory that doesn't actually mean ****? If I do a Hydro assist system I'll definitely step up to a larger cooler which will make mounting it in its current location impossible anyway.

 

[bp71k5]

It doesn't matter where the pump is at. Only matters that the top of the fluid in the reservoir is always higher than the pump inlet.

The cooler location being too low can make it hard to get the air out when bleeding the system. That's why they say the return line from the pump, through the cooler and back to the reservoir should all flow uphill if possible. I've read some guys have to temporarily move the reservoir up high at first so all the air can get out.

 

[375 H&H]

the reservoir only needs to be higher than the pump, like stated above. IIRC, the factory reservoir is lower than the hydraboost unit in my sub.

it's like a track hoe, where the boom hydraulics are higher than the reservoir , and things work just fine.

I do not fret cooler location. oil goes in, oil comes out cooler. an air bubble won't stop that.

a plate cooler should be purged but tube coolers should purge themselves on start-up.

 

[rompinstompinmudmonkey]

My cooler is mounted higher than the pump is and I haven't had any problems with it mounted that way for the 2 years its been on there

 

[ktmoutfront]

My cooler, reservoir and filter are higher than the pump. For 8 years. Only time I burned a pump up, was when I took the system off because I did not have a ram or anyrhing other than stock.

I tapped the caps so I can turn the box in as a core when it goes bad.

 

[muddysub]

Cool that's what I figured. I had never heard that and was skeptical. I work on concrete pumps, the hyd systems are very complex and our booms reach up to 58M vertically. So there's a ton of oil up there above the tank. My steering system bled out very easily so I didn't think there would be any issues.