Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

Hi All,

Per the workshop manual (37A-10), to bleed the power steering you need to lift the front wheels and crank the engine (without it starting). It tells you how to do that for a petrol engine, but how do I achieve this on a Gen3 (non-common rail) diesel?

pull the electrical connectors off the injection pump.

Or loosen all the union nuts on the injectors

4ePikanini wrote:pull the electrical connectors off the injection pump.

Or loosen all the union nuts on the injectors

Thanks, Marius

I posted the above OP because I found a leak that I think is power steering related.

This was the post that I made in the "What have you done...?" thread:
Found a spot of oil on the drive under the passenger side in front of the left hand front wheel.

Looks like the lower joint of the power steering "Return pipe B" is leaking.

Did a search - found a few reports of power steering pipe joints weeping (as a result of internal perishing) on the Aussie Pajero forum.

Went to Sandown Mitsubishi in Bryanston - Parts are no longer open on a Saturday morning - you can buy a whole car, just not parts - duh!

Will get price and availability Monday and could well end up getting a replacement sourced from an industrial hydraulic systems supplier.

So this morning I stripped out the battery tray, air inlet and the front bash plate, with the intention of removing the faulty Return pipe.

But having cleared the decks it looks like the lower joint of the return pipe may have had oil leak on it from somewhere higher up - perhaps the power steering reservoir or the PS pump. It's really hard to tell - and of course once the battery and battery tray are out its not so easy to start the engine to see if there is a visible leak once running.

I will try to borrow a high pressure cleaner then clean and maybe reassemble, top up the reservoir, go for a drive and then look again to try to identify the source of the leak.

Two questions:
1. Are there any common failings in the PS system in Gen3 models of this sort of vintage (2002 / 250k km)?
2. Is there anything I should do by way of preventative maintenance on the power steering while I am grovelling, other than a fluid change?

Idling the engine with the battery jury-rigged it looks like PS hydraulic fluid is weeping onto the top of the PS pump, so I presume it is the oil seal between the PS reservoir and PS pump. That is labelled part #3 on P37A-32 of the workshop manual.

So that means that the PS pump has to be removed (only way to get at the left hand reservoir securing bolt). Which, of course, means that the O-ring at the rear of the PS pump body (part #3 on P37A-30) will also need to be replaced.

After some more observation I realised that this was not hydraulic fluid that was leaking (too viscous), but engine oil weeping from the top of the front flange of the power steering pump (joint hidden just below the power steering reservoir).

I tried to remove the power steering pump (that involves removing the battery tray), but even after I had cleared the decks I just could not get to the lower of the two bolts that fix the power steering pump to the front of the engine.

So I went to see my friendly Inde and we agreed that I would source a seal kit etc. for the pump and that he would remove the pump, strip, replace all seals and refit.

OEM Parts from Mitsu Bryanston:
1 * Seal kit (O-rings) MLMR510381 R292 excl VAT
2 * New copper washers for high pressure pipe MLMF660066 R14.10 ea excl VAT
1 * rear body O-ring MLMF520407 R29 excl VAT

Today I left the car with my Inde and three or four hours later it is all done.

He showed me the old O-rings / seals. Several so brittle that they would just crack if you looked at them. The shaped front body seal was the original site of the leak.

So I will just monitor it for a few days, but otherwise I am a happy chappie and Dusty is purring.

Thanks for the feedback, hope it cured the leak! Know how frustrating it is to find the source of an oil leak...

Thanks for the feedback, I've also got a PS leak problem on my Gen2 and you at least gave me the motivation to look at it

I recently repaired the leak on my power steering pump. It helped that a lot of stripping was done as I was replacing the head. See the photo below of what the leak looked like as well as diagram on which O-rings I replaced.

It is advisable to power wash the area before working on the pump - it prevents the oil soaked grit from getting into the pump and pipes when you work on it.

The first leak was between the fluid reservoir and the pump, on top. The second leak was between the pump and the engine, at the back.

As mentioned above, in order to repair the first leak under the reservoir, you need to remove the whole pump. One cant' only remove the reservoir as there is a bolt that you can can reach, but there is not enough space to get it out completely. I tried.

First drain the hoses from steering fluid then plug the hoses - prevent grit. Then take a small transparent piece of pipe and suck out the reservoir itself, rattlesnake-venom-suck-out style. It makes a mess if you dont.

Do not loosen any bolts on the front side of the pump. Only the two mounting bolts at the back (see the green arrows on the diagram). The top one is ok, but the bottom one will need some stripping, long extension socket and a flexible joint.

Next, I simply went to a local power steering repair shop and asked for similar O-rings. They gave both to me for free. When inserting the reservoir O-ring, apply a little grease to help ease it back in and so prevent miss-forming it.