Power steering coolers?

[blazen91]

I've seen a lot J**ps and other vehicles with power steering fluid coolers. Why? What is the idea behind it? Does the cooler fluid give you better steering control? TIA

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[Gopherkiller]

Ya, Jeeps, Fords, and some others used coolers in the return lines. Why, don't know. Just something more to leak, I guess!

 

[TX Mudder]

I have a friend that plumbed a small auto tranny cooler between the low pressure line from the gear box to the pump. I don;t think he really needed the cooling (runnning 33's) but the extra volume surely can't hurt anything.
-- Mike

 

[HarryH3]

It's supposed to keep the fluid from overheating. But I've never heard of anyone having problems with their power steering overheating, so I don't know how much difference it really makes. I've got one of those coolers laying around the garage somewhere. It came off of a 70-something Ford LTD and looks like a tiny tranny cooler.

My '79 F-150 also had one but it didn't look like a radiator. It was just a long piece of steel tubing that ran across the engine crossmember and back. I guess it would have removed a few degrees of heat from the system but it sure didn't look to be very efficient.

<font color=black>HarryH3 - '75 K5</font color=black>
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[K5BLT4FUN]

My 91 Suburban with the trailer towing package had a powersteering cooler on it from the factory. It consisted of a series of aluminium tubing in the return line, mounted under the radiator support.

 

[RLBstein]

I had one on my diesel, I think they wanted to cool the fluid because the power steering hoses went to the brake booster to power the brakes as well.

82 Blazer

 

[Shawn]

I'm adding one to mine to offer additional cooling. With the Rock Ram and AGR's gear box and pump, this generates more heat not to mention it works harder to turn the larger tires. If I didn't have the ram, I would probably leave it alone but I did have some problems running just the AGR box and pump last year. Steve can vouch for that since he burnt his hand on my steering box. I'm not sure why it ran so hot, maybe it still had air in the lines.

I thought I could save some money and run the lines through my open ports on my radiator (no auto trans) but I've been told it's too difficult to get the air bubbles out of the radiators lines.

At any rate, I figure it couldn't hurt to run a PS cooler.

Shawn
87 K5
few mods

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[AZK5]

I boil fluid out of my power steering everytime I go rock crawling. Trying to force tires to turn while climbing boulders is hard on the steering. I plan to put a cooler on my K5.
CB

 

[blazen91]

Thanks all for your input

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[Smitty]

If you look at a power steering system as a basic hydraulic system it probably wouldn't need a cooler under "normal" conditions. Most hydraulic systems use a large reservoir as a main cooling component. A lot of the people on this site put their steering through more than the "normal" workout. We only have a small reservoir attached to our pumps and it can't handle the extra heat generated by forcing large tires to turn at weird angles. Some type of cooler is required in this type of situation.

I've worked on a few prototype pieces of equipment that didn't take the hydraulic cooling in to account. It's amazing how hot the systems can get and the things that start to fail because of the intense heat.

Smitty

 

[RESTORE89]

I HAVE AN 89 SILVERADO, AND IT HAS THE SAME SERIES OF COILED TUBING ATTACHED TOTHE BOTTOM OF THE RADIATOR, THEE IS ALSO AN OILER COOLER? I THINK, IT LOOKS LIKE A SMALL TRANNY COOLER, BUT THE SUPPLY AND RETURN LINE COME FROM THE TOP OF THE OIL FILTER, BU THERE IS NO AUXILLARY TRANNY COOLER, JUST THE LINES GOING TO THE RADIATOR.