Yo blew out a rusted power steering line, a hose, or the rack. Rarely will
a rack fail suddenly so look for where the leak originated. It won�t be
hard to find the source.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Matthew Snook
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 10:50 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: steering woes

Ok, all you experts out there.  My '84 Westy developed another 'issue'
today.  Or yesterday, I should say.

Yesterday at the library I noticed a trail of steering fluid - a series of
'dots' close enough to know that it was _me_ pulling into the parking slot
-
and a small puddle of steering fluid under the front end.  So I topped off
the cylinder and kept watch the rest of the day in town - I didn't notice
anymore trails so I figured it would at least let me have another day, and
I
made a note to look into it as soon as possible, which didn't happen to be
right then.

Because today I had to drive to Hermiston and back on two counts of
business...  Well, I got there just fine, but noticed that the steering
was
stiff.  And there's fluid all over the right side of the van!  This time
it
just blew out everything it had!

So... No more waiting!  Before I jump into my first steering mess, are
there
any pointers or things to look for?  Other than "don't wait 'til it blows
up."  Too late for that one.  I'm wondering if there are unique and out of
production parts that I'll have to search for, or anything like that.  I
guess I'll know more tomorrow, when I get under there and see what's
leaking.  Any predictions?

Thanks,

Matt