My power steering started getting loud so I figured I’d put a new pump in. But after putting the new pump in it’s just gotten much louder and I wish I wouldn’t have changed it.

Steering is perfectly smooth if anything smoother than before, and I put 2 new bottles of fluid through the system. The main issue is just a horrible groaning noise, which I suspect is air. Funny enough it gets louder the longer I drive.

I have changed both the high pressure side and low pressure side O-rings, which for some reason made it get even louder.

Reservoir looks fine when car is running. When I turn the car off, it starts foaming up and the first few times it spilled over. Don’t see any visible leak and the reservoir level stays consistent.

And whenever I’m lost I look to my fellow AcuraZine members for advice. What could be causing all that air to get in? Could it be the new pump? I didn’t think to prime it before starting the car up (my bad), so could that have immediately damaged the new pump? Any tips would be very very much appreciated. I can’t stand that noise anymore it’s shaking me to my core.

 

Follow the air bleeding process at #3 below, hopefully you find joy.
Either place cardboard under the front wheels to facilitate the tires moving easier or lift up the front end (jack satands) to turn the wheels lock to lock as described.
If that does not clear up the air present in the systems then recheck all prior disconnected connections for a tight fit.

 

Great post by zeta and I was going to suggest more or less the same - you potentially have air in your system.

 

Haven’t done a full flush like this, but I have bled out the air several times, wheels raised engine off, and engine on as well. The air gets out but as I drive it seems to get pulled in and get worse the longer I drive for. Sometimes after starting over night there’s little to no noise but by the time I get the thing to work it sounds like it’s screaming

 

Couple things:

-Air in the system should make the pump sound whiney - like a high-pitched wine. You'd also see bubbles in the fluid in your reservior.

-In lieu of a bleed-n-fill, you might consider "burping" your p/s system instead. Same procedure but without disconnecting the return hose. There's always going to be air in the reservoir so you don't care about that - but what you don't want is air getting sucked in by the pump.

-Is the new pump aftermarket or OEM? Earlier this year I replaced my RDX's 14yo pump with a new but aftermarket pump and noticed it whined more than the old one. Replacing the plastic inlet piece and and red o-ring with new (OEM) parts helped a little but not a lot... after that I decided to get creative and put a little Hondabond around the perimeter of where the plastic inlet piece mates with the pump body. This heled quiet the pump down some more and I even noticed the steering feel a little less tight.

My hypothesis is that the aftermarket pump has a slightly imperfect mating surface for the plastic inlet which was allowing air to get sucked in - and the Hondabond sealed these gaps. You can kind of see it in the pic below.