Excuse the car question

[Woodboy]

My son has a 1986 Honda Accord that needs a new power steering hose installed. I am wondering if we can do this ourselves, or need to let the experts tackle it. Midas quoted him $600 for that and a couple of belts - I'd give up my man license before I paid that much for this kind of job.

Any one out there done one, or can you suggest a good website that might help? I'm not afraid to tackle it if I had a little encouragement from someone that has done one. The car is 50 miles away and I can't crawl around the engine myself right now.

[crokett]

There are a lot of car forums out there. You can also try finding a shop manual - Haynes is a good one. If you know anyone who races cars, chances are they can help or know someone who can.

[JSCOOK]

No experience with Honda Accord's, but as posted Haynes & Chilton make excellent repair/service manuals, I've got them for ever vehicle I've ever owned ... check the web also as their is most likely a users forum or group (just like BT3Central) where you can get input from others that have worked on this exact model ... from my experience, power steering hoses are relatively easy as long as you can get decent access to them to loosen and tighten them ... have a car jack handy as access from underneath will most likely be required on front wheel drives ...

My son has a 1986 Honda Accord that needs a new power steering hose installed. I am wondering if we can do this ourselves, or need to let the experts tackle it. Midas quoted him $600 for that and a couple of belts - I'd give up my man license before I paid that much for this kind of job.

Any one out there done one, or can you suggest a good website that might help? I'm not afraid to tackle it if I had a little encouragement from someone that has done one. The car is 50 miles away and I can't crawl around the engine myself right now.

[WoodButcher26]

Power steering hoses are usually fairly quick. The last one I did took me about 10 minutes and cost about $4, after a shop quoted me $140 for it--really didn't want to drive the 20 miles to my home using 'strong-arm' steering, but couldn't see paying that much for such a trivial repair.

Technique depends on whether it's the pressure line or the return line.

Pressure line will have steel ends crimped onto the rubber hose on each end, best taken off with a tubing wrench but can be done with a regular open end if you take care not to round off the nut. Probably will be an o-ring inside each end to help seal the fitting, don't remember for sure on that particular model. Take care when tightening that you don't knock an o-ring out of alignment, they can cut very easily and then will leak. Lubricate the o-ring with a bit of clean power steering fluid before installing. If possible, I also fill the hose with fluid before attaching the second end, gets fluid to the gear a little more quickly, less wear. Should be able to look up the appropriate torque specs on line, probably around 25-30 lbs for something like that--don't take my word, look it up---it's really easy to twist an end off if you're getting too tight.

Return line will more than likely be a rubber hose with a clamp holding it on. Got to make sure you get the clamp in the right area, the stub pipe that it may have a flared out end or a ridge to help the hose stay in place. The clamp needs to be placed upstream from that as opposed to on top of the flare or ridge. I will often use a couple of clamps if I have the room. Get the worm drive type clamps if you can, throw the original equipment sprung-wire things in the trash.

Make sure to have the car up on jack stands--never on the jack. Don't want to read about a car falling on someone who was working on it while on the jack--good way to see how fast your life insurance will pay off.

Some of the hoses do a snake job to get up and around to where they need to connect, that could be the reason the price is up. Having said that, my repair shop was going to charge me $400 to install a $60 part that takes one bolt to install--about a three minute job. Good luck.


kim

[Russianwolf]

Power steering is for whimps....(says the driver of a 1970 J4000 truck).

Like Woodbutcher said, it's usually not too bad if you can get to it without too much trouble (the reason I hate FWD cars). Get the Haynes manual and it will walk you through exactly what you need (tools wise) and how to do it. Sometime you can do it without removing some of the things the manual says, but it may take alittle more effort.

I used to tease my brother all the time. He had a 1991 Honda Civic LX with power steering, I later had a 1989 Honda Civic SI. He used to tell me the power steering wasn't working, and I would offer him $100 if he could find the power steering opening on it (the SI didn't have PS).

I can give you one example of what we mean about getting to the problem. We have a Saturn Vue for my wife. It's a FWD/AWD SUV, meaning it's FWD unless AWD is needed. I have had problems with it slow starting. The Battery and the Alt. have both been tested and are fine. Most likely culprit would be the Power Lead to the Starter/ Selinoid/ or Starter. I went out to check the Lead to make sure it was tight. Well, After crawling around under this thing for 20 minutes I found it. The starter is on the back of the engine (against the firewall) and above the front Transaxle housing. I can't even touch the thing without removing major parts.

[onedash]

ive never owned or worked on a foreign car but saw a guy changing his brakes and it looked nothing like what im used to seing on my chevys.

[LYU370]

Sorry to inform you, but your Chevy IS a foreign car. It's just put together here.

[onedash]

Sorry to inform you, but your Chevy IS a foreign car. It's just put together here.

I guess I should have said Japanese...I know Canada is another country and im sure there are even plenty of pieces made in Asia. Even Harleys have most of their accessories imported. I know....

But Japanese cars look way different than US cars regardless of where the parts come from. They were disk breaks he was working on and its been a few years. All I remember is everything about it looked different.

[Russianwolf]

I don't mind foreign cars. I loved working on my Mazda RX7 and B2600 4x4, it's the FWD vehicles I despise. I want RWD/4x4 vehicles only from now on. when they turn those engines sideways to make it work with FWD, it makes it too tight to work on.

Heck, I can sit in the engine compartment and close the hood on my Jeep J4000. That's roomy. And I can get to everything (not that there;s much to get at on a 36 year old truck.

[oakchas]

Avoid Midas!

They will tell you that they only use OEM parts and that is why $$$... (sorry it's B.S.) You could probably go to a dealership and get a better price. Most decent garages for foreign cars will give you a much better price... else, get a Haynes or chilton manual and DIY following the great advice here or get more advice from a Honda forum...

[WoodButcher26]

I did the brakes on my foreign car in about 15 minutes--included getting the car up on the jack stands--the rotors did not need surfacing. Most of them are light-years ahead in planning for maintenance over anything the US produces.

Sorry if any of you are auto engineers, but sometimes I think the guys who design them should have to replace the things they design with only an adjustable wrench, a four-way screwdriver, and a claw hammer--the three tools that just about every household has. Riidiculous the number of specialized tools you have to keep to do routine maintenance any more--four different oil filter wrenches? Get serious!

[JSCOOK]

Woodbutcher26, IMO I couldn't agree with you more ... for years & years I was a diehard GM & Ford man, particularly a Pontica fein ... until we bought an import to "try" after a feud with GM, and haven't owned any Big 3's ever since ...

My all time favorite screw ups was where GM put things on the early SunFire's and mid 90's Grand Prix GTP's ... our sunfire was a disaster ... somebody there was stoned during the design stage!

BMW's are my favorite by far, it just seems like they actually "thought things thru" when they designed it, including the brakes ... but there are some "specialized" tools that I did have to purchase though.

Sad to think how easy it was to work on the old muscle cars when compared to what they are producing today ....

[WoodButcher26]

Amen to that.

My favorite "maintenance issue" was shown to me by a guy I used to work with at the parts store. He had a '76 Chevy Monza with a baby V-8 that he bought new. Back in those days, they recommended changing the plugs every 24-30K miles. He started the job, then scratched his head when he tried to change the last three plugs on the driver's side. Ended up having to remove the air conditioning compressor to get to 2 of them, but still couldn't get to the last one--the firewall sloped back toward the pax compartment, and the top of the engine was hard up against that firewall. Anyway, he went to the Chevy dealer and talked the service manager into letting him at the service manual for the car, and the first step in changing the plugs for that model: "Remove the engine and transmission assembly from the vehicle." Needless to say, at over 100K miles, the number 7 cylinder still had the factory spark plug...

Give me a small block in a rear-wheel drive muscle car any day. And if it starts to rain while you're working on it, just close the hood--there's still plenty of room.


Kim

[newbie2wood]

I'm not a mechanic nor have any experience with Honda Accords. Power steering hose replacement can be easy or difficult depending how it snakes around other parts. Get yourself a good manual (check the local library). Another thing that you could do (but kind of sneaky) is to bring the car to another mechanic, tell him to check for power steering leaks, and ask him to show you the problem. This way you will know where the problem is and what parts need to be replaced.

If the hose is a metal pressured line, the part can be relatively expensive ($80-$200 OEM). The return line is usually cheaper ($6-$50). I know how it feels to be ripped off by mechanics but if the part is expensive and the labor intensive it be worth paying the $400.
________
ZOLOFT SIDE EFFECTS