Rebuilding your vehicle’s power steering system

A tale of luck, marriage and $48.

In the not so distant past, I purchased a 10 year old Mitsubishi Triton dual-cab ute. I had wanted a ute for years, but had never been able to afford one. Utes seem to hold their value much better than cars - costing around 25% more than a comparable age car.

One day I saw a ute on eBay. It was cheap and looked in good nick so I bought it! Yes that’s right - I bought it. No inspection – I just bought it.

Upon getting the ute home I realized the power steering system was leaking everywhere. It was using its whole reservoir of fluid every 100 kms! The pump was leaking in multiple places and so too was the steering gear box. To make it worse the pump is very close to the fan which was doing a great job distributing the fluid throughout the engine bay. It was a real mess and smelt like a bon-fire in a tyre yard!

I took it to a hydraulic specialist who said it would need a new pump and steering box and would cost about $1000 to fix with reco parts. I started to realize it wasn’t quite the bargain I first thought. I asked the guy if there were any other options and he said I could either go back to the good old days and just have heavy, manual steering or I could try filling the reservoir with a leak stopping fluid – a highly viscous substance similar to honey that clogs up all the gaps. Having experience the joys of manual steering on urban roads and multi-level carparks with my first car, I decided to give the fluid option a go.

To my surprise, this fluid slowed the leak considerably. With the problem much less annoying now, I put up with the occasional odor of fluid burning as it dripped on the exhaust, and the lovely spots on the garage floor. That was until my brother in-law, a farmer and hydraulic guru came to visit. He suggested we have a go at replacing the seals in the pump.


I had no previous experience with hydraulics, or seals so I had no idea if this was something we could pull off, or something that would result in about 0.001 ton of scrap for the metal man.

My brother in-law was confident and a very capable tinkerer, so we gave it a go. I found a workshop manual for the ute on the Internet which detailed the internal workings of the pump and box. We removed the pump and with the diagram as a guide pulled it apart. It contained 2 seals and a few o-rings. We took the pile of parts that once resembled a pump down to the hydraulics shop and got them to match the seals and o-rings. They were all standard sizes and were no trouble to match. They cost a grand total of $6!

Very excited, we hurried home, put it all back together and stuck it back in the ute.

To our surprise, it worked! Not a single leak from the pump. I couldn’t believe it. Using nothing more than handy-man tools, a diagram and the people I inherited through marriage, I had a $6 ‘reconditioned’ pump!

With the pump solved, we wondered if we could fix the box too. We had a look at the manual and it was complicated. Many parts were pressed together, and I didn’t have the tools to pry them apart. So we decided to leave it for another day. My brother in-law has a very well equipped shed, including a near lethal press, pullers and other specialized tools. We decided next time I visited his place I would remove the steering box from the ute, bring it with me and fix it at his place.

About 6 months later my family and I went to his place for Christmas. I pulled the steering box out of the ute (a story in itself) and took it with us. Not many people bring steering components with them to Christmas Tea - but I do.


After the festivities had settled down, we had a crack at the steering box. It wasn’t difficult to pull apart, but was fiddly. It was beginning to look like one of those adventures that end in the participants saying ‘why did we start this’ or ‘what were we thinking’. The kind of project where you have put everything back together but still have 2 bolts, a nut and a handful of bearings you don’t know what to do with. We were very careful and tried to think 2 moves ahead before touching anything. After about 2 hours we had located all the seals and o-rings.

We drove the 45 minutes to the next town – Horsham – that had a hydraulic supplier. Like before, we walked in with a bucket full of parts and asked them to match the seals. For about an hour they measured the shafts, measured the seals, scratched their heads, then measured some more. There were only 4 seals, but 2 of them where not a standard size. They needed to be ordered from Sydney - not normally a big deal, but over Christmas would take some time.

After about 4 days of out-staying our welcome, the parts arrived. Hoping we could still remember where everything went we put the steering box back together. It went together really easily. Better yet, we had no parts left over.

A few days later my family and I travelled back home and I put the box back in my ute. I hopped in, lovingly took one last look at the kids and nervously took it for a test run. There’s nothing like having the crucial part of your car’s steering and thus your life in the hands of your DIY project. I was really just hoping it stayed on the road. At this stage I didn’t care if it leaked or not.

I took it for a gentle hoon around the block and lived to tell the tale. Now I was getting excited.’ I wonder if it is leaking’. I popped the bonnet and like I had done so many times before, ran my finger along the steering box to gauge the severity of the leak. However, this time my finger was not covered in oil. In fact it was not covered in anything at all - the box was squeaky clean.

I took it for another hoon (this time a real hoon) and checked it again. Still clean. I couldn’t believe it. The whole thing was fixed! I rang and thanked my brother in-law. He was rapped too.

My initial quote to fix the system was $1000. My brother in-law and I fixed it ourselves for $48, about 8 hours work and no special tools other than a press. This all happened 16 months ago, and to this day neither the pump nor box leak at all. The ute really was a bargain after all!

The moral of the story - if you are going to buy crap off eBay check the skills of your wife's family first. Thanks Rodney!