My 2005 TL has developed a pretty bad power steering fluid leak, even when it is not being driven. I tracked down a metal pipe that's connected on either side by rubber hoses; the pipe seems to be badly corroded (this car was originally from NY) and flakes off if you touch it. I've purchased a new replacement part (part #53779-SEP-A01, listed as return pipe B 10mm) and have disconnected the rubber hoses on either side of the corroded pipe, but I'm having a really hard time getting it out of the car... seems like the angled part of the pipe cannot get past the control arm. I've considered getting the axle out of the steering knuckle, but I'm not sure if it's going to help much. Seems like even if I do get the pipe past the control arm and pull it forward toward the front of the car and into the bumper, I'm going to have to pop out the plastic grill part of the bumper (it's where Acura added foglights in the 2007-2006 models) just to snake the pipe out. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can disconnect to get the pipe out? I've attached pictures for reference, it is part #19 in the diagram.

 

Never did one, but some pipes aren't installed/designed with the intent of being removed without
removing half the car.
As it's the return pipe and contains rubber hose connections, worst case scenario, cut the pipe in half,
or at a strategic point as to be able to remove the 2 pieces. If that works, just do the same for the install.
If you do cut the pipe, make certain to clean up the cut area so no rough or flared ends could penetrate
the new rubber hose.

 

I think I'm doing this job tomorrow on my '04 TSX
NH car and seems like there must be a tiny pinhole crack near the end of my return pipe exactly where the plastic clip is at the front of the car.

FWIW, it appears the Honda part from a '04 Accord V6 model is the same part as my '04 TSX. Different part number but I think the part is the same.
I will try to verify that.
Only 1 Acura dealer near me, not in stock @ $74 (Acura part #53779-SEA-G00)
Several Honda dealers, one in stock @30.78!Honda part is also part #19 on diagram
019
PIPE B, RETURN (10MM)
53779-SDB-A00

 

When my steering rack came out, the entire area near the air intake and fuse box was removed. Along with tying off odd tubes and harnesses.

 

To answer OP (for people searching as this is an old thread),
Once disconnected the clamps and clips for both sides my pipe basically fell out of the car.
Was working from the top on one piece and when I went under the car it was laying on the ground (!)

Rusted clamps are the worst part, and the very tight clearances otherwise it's an easy job.

The pipe needs to be fished back in from underneath the car. It ain't going in from the top. So jack up the whole front end for working down there and use jack stands.

I made the Honda metal pipe part work. It's longer by about 3"
I will make a step by step post on what I did and how I made it fit.

 

To answer OP (for people searching as this is an old thread),
Once disconnected the clamps and clips for both sides my pipe basically fell out of the car.
Was working from the top on one piece and when I went under the car it was laying on the ground (!)

Rusted clamps are the worst part, and the very tight clearances otherwise it's an easy job.

The pipe needs to be fished back in from underneath the car. It ain't going in from the top. So jack up the whole front end for working down there and use jack stands.

I made the Honda metal pipe part work. It's longer by about 3"
I will make a step by step post on what I did and how I made it fit.

 

Update: I somehow missed the replies here, but I was able to finish the job this past weekend. You can do it on your own, but it helps to have a friend.

Here's what I did:

I jacked up the entire front end, removed the passenger front tire, belly pan and front bumper. It should be very easy to see the return pipe and the two hoses connected to it. I didn't bother clamping the hoses - they seemed hard and were probably brittle, so I wanted to avoid damaging them. I bought some extra hose and also got some spare hose clamps from Advance Auto (the OEM ones are terrible and you will probably mangle them getting them off if they're in as bad shape as mine were). Shouldn't cost you more than $10 - $15. Note that not clamping them will mean you'll get air into the power steering system, but once you get everything connected, just turn the steering wheel to full lock left and right a few times and that should get all the air out. Also, remove the oil filter, it will get in the way. You shouldn't lose much oil just for removing that.

I disconnected both hoses and let them drain into a pan. There'll be a fair amount, though it's unlikely you'll drain the entire system, but the reservoir will completely empty, so be ready to catch all of it. I bought 3 12oz bottles of the OEM Honda fluid just in case.

The pipe also has two plastic clips holding it to the frame (#7 in the part diagram in my original post). The clips fold over the pipe, but you can pry them off the frame as well. I'd recommend buying two spares since they're pretty cheap (probably under $2 a piece). Basically, once you get the pipe disconnected, it's going to flop around freely in there and the angled part of the pipe is the limiting factor; even if you twist it around, it will catch on either the axle boot or the control arm. At this point, I got a friend to help basically bend the pipe so that I could pull it through the front end where the bumper was. It's a low pressure pipe, so some manhandling should be okay as long as you're not too rough...

Once you get the old one out, the new one should go in pretty easily, though you'll again encounter the same problem with the angled part of the pipe catching on the axle boot. You'll want to do the same thing again: manhandle that sucker into place. Extracting the old pipe took a while for me, and you can afford to be rougher on it since you're replacing it, but once I realized that forcing it it was the only way to avoid having to take out things apart, like the axle, I was able to get it out pretty quick. Getting it back in was much faster (took only about 5 minutes for me).

Depending on how hard you were on the pipe, you'll probably have to bend it back into the proper shape and that's where the two spare clips come in handy. You can get a general idea of what shape it should be by where the clips are supposed to go, so work on that and once you can get the pipe in, just make sure it's not touching any parts of the engine it's not supposed to. Connect the hoses again (the front hose that goes into another pipe that runs underneath the bumper should be completely exposed, so I replaced that entirely), don't forget the hose clamps, and you should be done!

Overall, it is a simple procedure, just annoying because you have to mangle that pipe. Shouldn't take you more than a few hours to complete. I also recommend spraying brake cleaner if you've leaked a lot of fluid to clean everything up and make it easier to spot other leaks.

 

FWIW, on my TSX (not TL) I did not remove any wheels, did not remove the oil filter (can't really see in my memory from last week how that would help - YMMV), and I did not remove the front bumper.
I DID pop out my TSX (not TL) fog light plastic cover - for great access to the area needing the most attention

I am making a separate thread for it - as I swapped in an 'unauthorized' Honda part which is different and did very mild tweaks / fabrication to make it work well.

Here's my inline text response here (but do look at the other link after tonight as I will post full pictures of it that correspond to the write up below):

Here's what I did (it will be explained better in this link soon):

https://acurazine.com/forums/first-g...-money-951344/

- Jack up the front of car and use car jack stands at the standard side jack points on either side. You can jack each side using the welded in tow hooks on either side of the front of the car, and then install jack stands, or you can use a hydraulic jack to pick the whole front end up using the subframe - you can see that metal subframe spot in the cutout near the front of the black plastic splash guard. Acura nicely has a large arrow pointing right to the jack spot there! Either method seems fine to get your jack stands in at the car sides.

- Remove the engine splash guard. I tried to avoid this (bad rust problems on fasteners), but once the B return pipe is loose it MUST come out the bottom of the car between the oil drain pan and the main serpentine belt area of the car. You gotta get that splash guard out of there.

- TIP! Reach in by the radiator cutouts on the passenger side and you can feel with your hands and push in plastic retainers for the fog light covers. My stock TSX has no fog lamps so there are quick snap in black plastic covers there only. Looking at the car from the front by radiator air openings, at the right side of the fog light cover there is an upper and lower tab. Push those back and you will be able to pop out the cover.
This give amazing clearance to the main area you'll be working in - from the front of the car too, not under it.

- You will want to empty the power steering fluid out. There’s several good ways to do this. I wanted easy using stuff on hand. So I disconnected the PS fluid return line to the reservoir and then used an empty 1 liter plastic bottle. I cut a hole in the middle of the bottle slightly smaller than the PS tube and shoved the PS hose in and turned it upside down. This made a pretty good seal for capturing all the fluid. Start the engine and turn the steering wheel lock to lock. A few times. Keep eye on the 1 liter bottle because it will fill up past the hole otherwise. I let some fluid spurt in there, turned off the engine, emptied the bottle and repeated. I was also down a full pint of fluid most likely, so you could want to do several cycles if you use a smaller 1 liter bottle. but at least this bottle will squeeze into the tight area as is.

- Disconnect the two light colored plastic clips to frame on the PS return line. Disconnect the 10mm bolt that holds in the line towards the rear of the engine. I removed while under the car.

- Disconnect the metal pipe clamps at the front and rear. Mine were horribly rotted and shattered under force. Fun.

- Actually my pipe more or less fell out of the car on it’s own. By the time I went under the car again, it was mostly laying on the floor. It’s not too hard to wiggle it out between the oil pan and the belt area.

I was pretty sure the Accord pipe had a different slight bend at the end and might be longer. Maybe too long?
These are the old Acura pipe and the new Accord V6 pipe compared side by side.
The Accord pipe is longer by about 3 inches, but it’s not a big deal as you are about to see,

The pipe fishes back up fairly easily. I did it a few times for fitment checking.
The pipe is too long.
So I was planning to chop it down 3 inches and borrow loaner tools from the local AZ to flair out the end of the pipe. But then I figured maybe I could make it work somehow without going out the store and learning how to properly flair the metal tube blah blah…

SO, I decided to chop off the end of the Accord pipe. Since it has two flairs on it already, and the second one is just a convenience ‘stop’ for the hose mounting on it, I marked the pipe with a sharpie where I wanted to the hose to slide up to. I sawed off the pipe and then filed it down to smooth it, and reamed the inside of the pipe with a screwdriver and made sure all the shavings came out (using gravity and a high powered magnet).

(The funny thing here, is I found I discovered to my surprise I not have a hacksaw on hand, so I found a jigsaw metal cutting blade and used a vise grip on the blade and hand sawed off the pipe end in a vise!) This explains the funny pic here, but it also shows you where to chop the end off.


Here’s the newly chopped pipe back in the car:



I then decided to trim back the stock rubber hose connector - this is the intermediate hose that connects the (front of car end) metal pipe to the PS cooler metal line which then runs around outside the radiator.


I trimmed it conservatively an inch or so, then a little more. Then I got inspired to flip around the hose, as the stock hose bends matched up quite a bit better reversing the hose!


This is the final B pipe to hose to cooler pipe routing and connection.

I reattached the PS return hose to the reservoir, filled the fluid back up to the ‘high’ level mark and started the car. I turned the steering wheel lock to lock several times to bleed air out of the system.
Job done, no more leaks, and no more PS pump howling!

 

I am going to replace the return rubber hose on the PS system. I bought the hose and the clips (expensive) and wondering how difficult it would be to replace? From the passenger side wheel area I can easily reach that hose clamp to the steel return line, but I didn't get a good look at the other side and how to access. Is it easily accessible from the driver side wheel area?x

 

It's been about 6 years since I did that repair and had to sell the car due to a pretty badly broken ankle in a motorcycle crash (I'm actually the Green M____ M___).
Anyway, you're question is a different part, but I would be almost certain the best access would be underneath the car if you can jack up the whole front on jack stands or maybe even wheel ramps.
If not, you can see if there's any chance to reach it from above behind the engine or something but willing to bet that's tough as it should be all the way down at the rack level.
Heck, can't tell the scale on that diagram or which side it attaches too, maybe it even goes in and out of the rack on the passenger side, so maybe you access if from there with that side up and the wheel off.
Good luck and post back what you wind up doing.