Accord euro 2004 on power steer pump noise.. Fixed

[muttttley69]

Hi , as a ex Honda technician, I was asked to have a look at a friends power steer noise for him. I had a few test drives of this vehicle and couldn't pinpoint where the whine was emanating from. I got my mate to take me for a drive and had him take his usual trip to his work, which he travels every day and f#@k me, sure enough the power steer pump started making a whining high pitch noise after ripping through the roundabouts and twisting hard cornering... the car was at operating temperature.
I jumped out with a stethoscope and had him go full lock left to right about 5 to 6 times and then just lightly left to right maybe 20degrees left to right. and sure enough, the power steer pump was noisy as anything...

Over the past 15 years or so, with Honda power steer systems, I noticed that many of Hondas reservoirs had the oil level min/max lines on different positions on the reservoir( either higher or lower) and also compared the position of the power steer pump inlet port in relation to the max oil line on the reservoir and found that the accord has both the reservoir set lower as well as the max mark.

This said to me that the pump was cavitating the oil under hard operating conditions and was struggling to pull the oil up from such a low level.

I raised the height of the reservoir by 20mm (by memory) and filled the reservoir to about 10-15 mm from the top of the reservoir.

++++ USE ONLY GENUINE HONDA POWER STEERING FLUID AND DO NOT USE ANY ADDITIVES+++++++

By raising the height of both the reservoir and the fluid level seems to have rectified this problem as it puts a lot less strain on the intake side of the pump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have tried on another noisy accord p/s system and no more noise.

give it a try, its not a very costly thing to do...

[Fredoops]

I raised the height of the reservoir by 20mm (by memory) and filled the reservoir to about 10-15 mm from the top of the reservoir.

++++ USE ONLY GENUINE HONDA POWER STEERING FLUID AND DO NOT USE ANY ADDITIVES+++++++

By raising the height of both the reservoir and the fluid level seems to have rectified this problem as it puts a lot less strain on the intake side of the pump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have tried on another noisy accord p/s system and no more noise.

give it a try, its not a very costly thing to do...

Thanks for the info.

If the PS pump is struggling to 'pump' from a normal level's reservoir thats usually an indication of a leaking pump isnt it?

well mine's certainly leaking/seeping from underneath, which is common, and a rebuild job.


as to the fluid, it's been tested and well known that Honda PS fluid are very very thick compared to others.

[muttttley69]

A lot of old power steer pumps from other manufacturers had their reservoirs directly on top of the pump the limit pump strain.
They also had issues of air drawing past the seal causing oil cavitation too.