Power Steering Location on a Porsche 944

THE WHY

If your gut feeling tells you it doesn't look right then it usually isn't.

When I first got my 944 the previous owner told me that he'd had the power steering unit fitted several years previous because his wife found the car difficult to drive (early 944's like my 1984 had optional power steering), and this was confirmed with the receipts in the service history. The first time I noticed something wasn't quite right was when I removed the floor pan and noticed one of the power steering lines on the outside of the sway bar mount. This made me suspect that the location of some of the other parts weren't correct either and so I got to researching where they should be. This proved more difficult than I had anticipated as both the Porsche service manual and Haynes manual have no diagrams and very very poor photographs. Fortunately after posting some photographs on the Pelican Parts forums I found some very excellent members who helped me out.

THE TASK

I was only relocating the cooling coil which required the following:

10mm socket
10mm spanner
Socket extension bar
Socket Wrench
Dexron II Automatic Transmission/Power Steering Fluid (Approx. £5-£7)
Flat bladed screwdriver
Cross-head screwdriver

THE HOW TO

(Amateur mechanic job time Approx. 2 hours)

Half the battle with this particular job was establishing right from wrong and making sure I had the correct parts and brackets. It is also worth noting that there are two versions of the power steering oil cooler, fortunately the more common coiled version fits later and early models with the correct bracket.

Early (Square Dash) long cooler coil - quite rare I think

Later (Oval Dash) looped cooler coil

THE WRONG WAY TO MOUNT THE COOLER COIL

So here's how the cooler was wrongly mounted and why I couldn't just leave it where it was. The picture below shows it mounted incorrectly in the engine bay on the radiator between the fan and the lower radiator hose.

The coil is very rusty and has been twisted to fit the location. Look how close the lower part of the coil is to the power steering belt! And has also been zip-tied to the power steering pump belt adjuster arm.

Longer arrow below shows just a single clip attaching the coil to the lower right hand corner of the radiator

Arrow below shows a kink in the rubber hose due to it being routed incorrectly

THE RIGHT WAY TO MOUNT THE COOLER COIL

To get an idea of just how wrong the location was take a look at the photo below which shows the coil correctly mounted ahead of the right front wheel and NOT in the engine bay or near the radiator at all.

So here's how I set about mounting mine after a purchased a good 2nd hand coil off ebay with the correct mounting bracket. I set the car up on axle stands and began by draining out the existing power steering fluid by simply detaching the hose from the lower end of the old coil. Do not reuse the old oil when you come to bleed the system at the end. I then removed the hose that secures the coil to the power steering bottle and detached the coil from the mount on the radiator. I then set about locating the mounting position using the photos form the Pelican Parts forum.

The photo below show where the bracket will attach directly below the washer bottle.

Now with bracket attached

Flip the headlights up to make threading the solid metal part of the coil around the front of the washer bottle easier.

Arrow below shows the headlights up and where the tube should appear

Arrow below shows the same tube but with the headlights down making sure it doesn't affect the headlight mechanism.

Photo below shows how the coil clips into the bracket

First arrow on left shows the end of the coil being held by the second bracket (attached to the corner of the raidiator bracket) and hose fed along engine bay towards steering rack.

Continuation of above picture showing hose going to steering rack.

Having securely connected up all the hoses I then proceeded to bleed the system. Whilst the car is still up on axle stands fill up the power steering bottle with new fluid to the correct level, then turn the steering wheel all the way from left to right several times whilst topping up the fluid to the correct level as it will drop on the cap dipstick as the air in the system is forced out. When the level appears not to drop anymore then you may run the engine and repeat moving the wheel from extreme left to right and vice versa making sure the fluid level doesn't drop and topping up if necessary, also check for leaks on any hoses too.

If your power steering rack needs replacing see my other how to here