Power steering spraying oil, missing filter holder the culprit?

I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction in relation a an issue on a newly acquired 55 Thunderbird. The wife upgraded from a 59 MGA to it this past month.

I notice a faint spraying of fluid on the underside of the hood close to the power steering reservoir area after she has driven the car and suspect it is the breather hole in the filler cap.

Doing some Google searches i found a thread where someone else had an identical issue and he pinpointed the problem as being the installation of the wrong power steering filter, a smaller than required one.

I emptied the reservoir and removed the filter. It is the correct one, just over 3 inches in diameter.

See the photos though. Looking at the MACS catalog and a service manual it would appear there is a missing piece. The lower filter holder.

All we had in there was, in order from the top down, the spring, spring retainer that sits on top of the filter, and the filter itself.

There was also an odd small clip/clasp which was in the bottom of the reservoir. My guess is that somehow the PO tried to use it to retain the filter?

Anyway, the filter holder that fits beneath the filter was totally missing.

We have one on order but can anyone help in advising as to whether this piece being missing might give us the issue we have?

Many thanks,

Hi Wex65,

I'm the guy that had the problem with my power steering. If you don't have a holder for the filter then I would think that is the problem. In my case, because of the smaller than normal filter the power steering fluid was coming from the return hose under pressure and not going through the filter at all. My car had the holder and once I put the correct filter in the problem was solved. With your reservoir lacking the holder the fluid is coming in under pressure let mine was and is not going through the filter either. One thing is will say is that my car is a "late" '57, meaning that it has a different PS pump then the rest of the early T-Birds. That may make some difference in the configuration of the reservoir, but probably not that much.

Please let us know how the repair turns out and if it fixes the problem.

Regards,

Hi Wex65,

I'm the guy that had the problem with my power steering. If you don't have a holder for the filter then I would think that is the problem. In my case, because of the smaller than normal filter the power steering fluid was coming from the return hose under pressure and not going through the filter at all. My car had the holder and once I put the correct filter in the problem was solved. With your reservoir lacking the holder the fluid is coming in under pressure let mine was and is not going through the filter either. One thing is will say is that my car is a "late" '57, meaning that it has a different PS pump then the rest of the early T-Birds. That may make some difference in the configuration of the reservoir, but probably not that much.

Please let us know how the repair turns out and if it fixes the problem.

Regards,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I am becoming more and more convinced the lower filter retainer will resolve the issue. It should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday and I will report back on whether it solves things for me....

...then I can move on to looking at the brake booster! Never ending.

I wanted to reply as it seems to me a major percentage of threads on forums don't see 'closure' and I don't want this to be in that category.

I got the lower filter holder, fitted it and all is fine. Happy camper, no more spray. Made sure we put the right ATF in and no problems at all. My wife is keen to do the bulk of the work on the car as it is hers and she replaced this just fine with no input from me.

57Birdman, thanks for your input.