SereniTTy

<center><img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/90421/dsc_0007.jpg"></center><p>I've been having a fun week. I sold my Miata last Saturday and within 15 minutes my power steering crapped out completely, it had been groaning a bit for 1-2 days before that and I had tried adding fluid, which had fixed it 3 years ago.

But no, this time my oil cooler line had abraded a pinhole in my power steering line right by the pump.

Thanks to an archived email by Steve I was able to get a part number and order the hose from World Impex. They screwed up and sent it to my houes signature only which ended up with me going into work early so I could leave early to beat the UPS guy to my house only to miss him and have to chase him guy down on my motorcycle and ask him for the package. Since the package was 24x12x12 he was nice enough to swing by my house again and drop it off.

Another 45 minutes of awkward but relatively easy installation later and the car was functional again. Thankfully it appears that the pump is fine despite running it dry.

Oh,and of course the hose was different, you can see in the picture how the section on the upper left has a different bend and how the accordian section is much taller. But I was able to make it fit without too much trouble.

Death sTTar

Well, the good news it that this week will hopefully be better.

TTschwing

The EXACT tsame thing happened to mine. Those stainless Cooler lines are pretty abrasive! I had the pinhole welded for $10 and it is working to this day....sorry Dan!

<img src="http://images110.fotki.com/v566/photos/7/7305/776256/DSC04060-vi.jpg">

<img src="http://images114.fotki.com/v641/photos/7/7305/776256/DSC04061-vi.jpg">

BaxTTer

I have a small leak in the rubber to metal fitting. I bought the hose from genuineVWAudiparts.com a month ago but did not have time to install it yet. It was looking like it would take a day to get to the rack side of things. How did you get to this side? From the engine compartment with the air intake out, or from the bottom reaching up to the rack?

If I can do it in under an hour I may make a run at it tomorrow! Thanks in advance for any input.

TTinCT

it is best to access everything from underneath....there may be minor access issues from the top to get to the reservoir....but that would be the worse case scenario...IMO

TTschwing

The drivers side sway bar bracket has a tab that this line is clamped to. Access is difficult. You can go through the wheel well but best to have a variety of straight and articulating 13mm wrenches to get that bolt out.
Have the correct Pentosin fluid on hand too!

BaxTTer

I have everything, just need to get the time to do it! Thanks for the input!

SereniTTy

ratchet to pull the bolt in the back. The front was more difficult, I had to pull the cross pipe for the IC to get a wrench in to pull that end of the hose. Otherwise getting the hose to my house was more work than replacing it.

Took me maybe 90 minutes start to finish.