GreenMM

Hi all:

(Note: the parts are very close but different. A small quick easy mod makes this work well).

I just had a significant power steering leak... and caused my PS pump to howl and howl. Not happy driving.

There is only one Acura dealer in the area, and they did not have the Power Steering combination return pipe "B" in stock.
I checked parts lookup to see if I could sneak an Accord pipe in there. I am also cheap.
I went to local Honda dealer to pickup Honda PS Fluid. When I talked with part guy he got inspired about my Accord swap idea (the I4 version was fairly different) and looked up the V6 version of the 2004 Honda Accord.
On the microfiche the parts looked the same. Another close by Honda dealer had that part in stock, so I got it.

The Acura part was $75
The Honda part was $30.48

Since this is a New England car - hello salt. That rotten the line out and also rusted many of the bolts.
I had to fight and break all the clamps and then another battle with every rusted nut on the splash guard.

Here's the steps to do this replacement and the very minor modification (it was fun).

- 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.

(more to come with pics next)

GreenMM

Here's the inverted 1 liter bottle hooked up:





- 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,

GreenMM

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).

thoiboi

There comes a time cost versus money cost saving at some point. How much time did you have to spend extra to finagle it and get it fit properly, all for $45 bucks?

GreenMM

(The funny thing here, I discovered to my surprise I did 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!

GreenMM

The answer to your question thoiboi is - very very little time
(maybe 20 - 30 min extra?? If I knew the plan ahead of time about 5 minutes with a hacksaw nearby).

And I did NOT want to wait 1-2 or 3 days for a part to come in.
I wasn't willing to drive the car while I was having very low fluid and the leak, so wait time was a large factor.
I enjoy making something work if it's not a big deal.

I might not plan this out from the get go, but if someone is stuck without an available Acura part, it's nice to know this can work.

thoiboi

got it