WhiteSites Blog
WhiteSites Blog
I am going to start a new series of blogs dedicated to my 1997 Honda Prelude. Lets call it the adventures of owning a 20 year old Honda. This weeks blog takes us into repairing the Power Steering Hose on the high pressure side. By repair I mean replace. Unfortunately replacement parts for Honda ( OEM Honda Parts ) don't come cheap. The cheapest place I could find an OEM part # 53713-S30-A22 was at Majestic Honda for $218.59. When I called the shop I normally take my car to, I was quoted about another $200 just for the install. Which I thought was a bit much. Plus the part wouldn't be here for a week, and I have a business trip to Houston planned at that time.
So my choices where this. I either old off on the repair til I get back in town, which would be 2 weeks and 3000 miles later. Or I try to make the repair myself. My PS fluid level was already at below the low mark. Fluid was slowly bleeding from the line. I could just go buy some extra bottles of fluid and keep topping it off, but that just seems like a recipe for disaster.
The Fluid was seeping or leaking out of the hose near the top of the engine. You can see power steering fluid pooling in the coupler that holds the hose, plus the hose was visibly wet.
On the back side of the engine you can see the fluid has covered most everything.
After some searching I found that Auto Zone's own house brand (Duralast) makes the replacement part for $122.99. Even better I called and they could have the part at the store by 6PM tonight. So I will be going to pickup the part tonight and try to do this install myself. I will update this blog later as things evolve.
The job looks pretty straight forward. loosen the 14mm fitting on one end, loosen the 10mm bolts on the other end and pull out the old hose. But in practice is not that simple. The 14mm tends to take quite a bit of torque to come loose. I have heard of some guys who live up north where the roads are salted, which said the corrosion required a breaker bar to get it loose. I was fortunate in my car lived in the South for most of its life, and I was able to get it loose just using a 14mm wrench, though I did have a use quite a bit of pressure to get it loose.
The worst part of removing the old cable is you have to stick you arm behind the engine in a very tight space to loose then 14mm fitting. Those who work out a lot and have thicker forearms will find this part very painful. Stick men shouldn't have a problem other than not enough muscle to get the 14mm bolt loose.
I assumed that the Duralast Power Steering High Pressure Hose would have been an OEM factor replacement. But I found out the hard way its not. The hose is actually not as thick as the OEM hose. which means it has extra play in the guide mounts. Plus the part that bolts to the Power Steering pump is extremely thick, where the factory 10mm bolts are not long enough to connect it. To make your life suck even more is the mount for the Power Steering sensor is facing the wrong direction. This forces you bend the metal part of the line quite a bit once its in place so you can connect the plug to the sensor. Then to finally piss you off, they use a 9/16 fitting instead of the factory 14mm. Fortunately the threads are the same, but there is something about putting Non Metric Parts on a Honda that just doesn't feel right.
Getting the OEM hose out took 30 minutes. Putting the new hose in took 4 hours. I still need to pick up the correct 10mm bolts so I can bolt this down. 
Here you can see the over sized end that connects to the power steering pump. I had to buy a couple of bolts from the hardware store to attach this as the factory 10mm bolts were not long enough.
The hose wasn't as thick as the OEM honda one, so I had to use some zip ties to keep it in the couplers.
IF I had to do this again knowing what I know now, I would have bought the OEM Hose from Majestic Honda ( Cheapest Place to buy new OEM Honda Parts online ). Sure it would have cost an extra $100, but I would have been done in under 1 hour. Just a warning to anyone that is going to try to save some money by using Duralasts replaement Honda parts.
@Sid, If I recall I just went to the hardware store and bought longer bolts with the same thread as the factory ones. Unfortunatley I don't remember the exact specs of the Bolts.
Great piece. I'm pretty darn seasoned when it comes to repairing my 98 Prelude, but this job had me questioning everything. Removing the hose was easy, installing it changed me. I'm seriously struggling to get the lower end to screw into the hole. You're absolutely right about the forearm thing. Glad to know it's not just me.