Quote Originally Posted by UselessPickles View Post
So now for my leaking power steering fluid story...

After installing the new power steering hose, there were no obvious leaks. But as time went by, I started to notice there was a damp spot on the steering gearbox around the hose fitting. It slowly grew bigger over time. So one day, I decided I would get in there with a wrench and just snug it up a bit tighter to stop the leak. The next day, the entire gearbox was completely soaked in a thick coat of fluid, and the fluid level in the reservoir had visibly dropped.

So I ended up out in the driveway in the dark (got a late start in the evening) with a head lamp, going through the whole messy process of removing the power steering hose again so that I could hopefully find an obvious cause for a leak.

And it was luckily quite obvious:




The OEM power steering hose has funky ends that appear to be a small compression fitting with an o-ring. From some quick searching, this seems to be a common type of hose fitting for power steering lines (probably other high pressure hydraulic lines too). The new hose in the stage 2 kit has "AN" style flared compression fittings, and comes with adapters (one pictured above).

Some googling taught me that you need to pre-lube the o-rings on these fittings before installing, and then also not over-tighten them, or else you can damage the o-ring and cause a leak. I didn't pre-lube it when I installed it, which probably partially damaged it. Then tightening it more to try to stop the leak just damaged it more.

A trip to a small local hardware store in the morning was all I needed to find a replacement o-ring that was very close in size. This time, I pre-lubed the o-rings with fluid (ATF-4 is what the manual calls for in the power steering system, btw), and followed some advice I found for tightening: gently thread it in until you feel it "bottom out" (obvious sudden increase in resistance), then just snug it up about another 1/8 turn. It doesn't need to be super tight.

The tricky part is that the AN flared fitting needs to be tightened more tightly, so you should hold the adapter steady with a second wrench while tightening the hose onto it to avoid accidentally indirectly over-tightening the adapter.

I'm learning all kinds of stuff from my mistakes with this turbo install
Jeff i had the same issue with the power steering leak. O ring was damaged. 3rd day after the install of the stage 2 is when i noticed a puddle of pink fluid under the jeep. Took it back to the shop and they replaced the O ring. Havent had a problem since.