How to Replace Power Steering Hoses 1994-2002 Dodge RAM 1500

Hey friends, it's Len here at 1A Auto. Today we're going to be working on our 1996 Dodge Ram 1500 and I'm going to show you how to remove the power steering pressure and return lines. If you need any parts, check us out, 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

Now we're just going to break these lines free. I've been spraying these down for a while now and of course they're very well lubricated, so hopefully... Nice. Okay. Once we get this line off all the way, we'll do the same to the other one. Okay. Get the line off of here, we've plenty of fluid coming out so you want to make sure you have your collection bucket down there. Just do its thing for a minute and then we'll do the other line. This line right here, which is closest to us to get to right here is the pressure line. This one goes up to your power steering pump. It's going to have a little rubber gasket on it right along there. We're going to be replacing this hose anyway so I'm not too worried about it. But if I wasn't, I would want to make sure this is super clean and I replaced that gasket. Generally speaking, you should have new rubber gaskets, they should come with the box generally speaking.

When you're doing these lines, you're probably going to notice that I have the steering shaft off up here. And you're also going to notice that I have the Pitman arm off right here and the box is disconnected down here from the frame, but none of that has to come off to be able to get to either of these lines on top of the box. You just use your 18 millimeter wrench or you can use crow's foot if it's easier for you, you can do that. And you just take off the line from down at the box. Like I said, the pressure line is the one closest to right here and then the return line is going to be the one that's further towards the left side of the vehicle, which is a little bit deeper in to get to.

Now I'm just going to come up here and I'm going to try to grab this return line. Do the same thing. There we go. Okay, so this one I can get it to move just like this, but the fitting itself, if you were looking at it, the fitting should spin on the line just like this. You can turn the fitting but not the line. For the return line it's stuck on there pretty darn good. We're going to be replacing this but if you weren't, what you could do is spray that down with some penetrant. Tap on the line with a small hammer back and forth, back and forth and just try to break it free from the fitting.

If that didn't work, you could also try applying a little bit of heat. Of course if you apply heat you want to be careful not to overheat your box, don't use your torches or anything that. You could use a small butane but that's pretty much it. And then of course you have to pay attention to what you're going to do to the fluid inside there when you do heat it up. Because when you heat up fluid like that, it's going to cause issues. All stuff to keep in mind, it's a really short line. It just literally goes from here, right over to your power steering cooler. It gets cooled down, comes back this way and then goes up that way into your power steering pump right down over there.

With that said, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to take this off probably right here. I'll take it off right at the cooler and then I'm going to replace this whole hose. I followed my hose over. Comes right here to the power steering cooler. I'm going to take off this clip, clamp right here, use some pliers. Just going to grab it, squeeze it, pull it. There's our clamp. I'll just grab this hose, try to give it just a teeny little wiggle, see if I can get to break free from the cooler itself. Okay. If you can't, you could try using a pick. Just come right in through there. I'll show you how to do that.

We're going to use our pick and imagine that this is this line right here is this line. What you would do is you would just take your pick, go right along the metal and in between the metal and the hose, try to go right inside just like that, and then work it around the metal so it goes in between the hose and the metal. If you wanted to use a little bit of penetrate, you can go ahead and do that. You're just going to go right like this. Slide it in there. I can move it around a little bit. Just a little bit a lot of times will do it. Once you get some penetrant working its way in there, that's pretty much the end. And then you can just grab it. Oh yeah, look at that. Broke right free. I'm just going to pull a little bit. As I do this, fluid of course is going to come out so we've got our collection bucket ready and here we go.

I'm just taking out these little plugs just to make sure that there's nothing we don't want inside the holes in that box. That one looks really good, so I'm just going to put that back in just a little bit. If you have a hard time getting these out, sometimes they're super hard to get out by hand, you could try using some pliers. Pliers would come in handy. That looks pretty good though. Just leave that in there a little bit. Now I'm going to grab my new return hose. We'll get that one in there, snug it up, connecting it over here and then we'll continue on. Okay, so I took a little bit of power steering fluid here, I'm just going to put it on our O-ring and then this ring goes right on our line. That looks pretty great. You want to make sure that you have it lubricated. This is going to go into our steering box and then we're going to tighten this up and that rubber O-ring's going to make the seal.

We're going to take our return line, just bring it right up here. We'll take out our little cover. We're going to use that on our old box once we drain it out. That's just going to help make sure that no extra fluid comes out and makes a mess during the transport to its recycling center. We'll get that out there, that there. This is going to come right over here to our steering cooler. If yours is too long, you can go ahead and trim it down. This one looks like it's fairly decent, but I do want to clamp. I'm going to grab a clamp and I'm going to use a nice new clamp because well, why not? I'll grab clamp and put that on.

We have our return hose, our new clamp. Slide it on there, slide it onto the cooler, slide the clamp down so it's close to the end of the hose, but you still have a good, maybe an eighth to a quarter inch and you still make sure that you have plenty of the cooler coming all the way down. It comes down to about where my finger is. That's pretty much exactly where you want it. That feels pretty snug right there. I'm not going to go any further. If you can take your hose and you can spin it still, it's too loose. This feels really good. We'll tighten up that end. This should go all the way like that. Pretty much so it's right up against the box and then we can maneuver it after. Going to grab a little bit longer of a wrench so I can snug that up. Just snug that up. That feels great. The line cannot spin. We know we're doing good.

Now you just want to come under and you want to check right along where the line runs next to the box. If it's pressed right up against it, just take something as simple as a pry bar or screwdriver, put it in there and just kind of give it a little band. Just enough so it's not touching anywhere. Anywhere it's touching with every little vibration going down the road, it's going to cause a rub. Rub, rub, rub. Next thing you know you're going to have a hole in your power steering line. That would be very bad.

We took a little bit of parts cleaner and we cleaned up the area here because it was just full of gunk. And now we can see very clearly we have our line here, we have our fitting, it's a 16 millimeter nut on there. I'm just going to get my wrench on there. I'm coming from the backside of the differential. It gives me a pretty good view of what's going on here. My wrench on there, turn it counter clockwise. There it is. I'm just going to get this line all the way out of here and then we can replace it. I'm just going to try and get this the rest of the way by hand since it's nice and loose, more fluid's going to come out I'm sure. It's time to get the line out of here. I'm just going to work it down. Get that out of there.

And here my friends, is our power steering pressure line. Okay friends, let's take a look here. We just want to make sure we've got the same bends. We've got this nice sharp bend right here and it comes scooping around. Sharp bend, scooping around. Very nice. Right here it's kind of like a squared off end. The other end, squared off. It comes with brand new gaskets, which is super important. You can't install a line without brand new gaskets, doesn't make any sense. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't install it.

I've got some power steering fluid. Just put them all over these little rubber O-rings here. Make sure they're nice and coated. You want to make sure that they're lubricated, that way when you slide them over the line, they don't tear and also when you're putting them into the box or the pump, they don't tear when they touch that metal as well. Those look really great. I'd say we can continue and install this into the vehicle.

It's time to carefully get our line up in there. I'm just going to go up like this. It came around the backside of this line, so we'll just get it up in there. Awesome. Bring that around. Very cool. Get this hose a little twist. Sometimes it can be kind of a pain in the butt to get started in, but you can do it. I have faith in you. Very nice. Awesome. Okay, so that one started in there pretty good. Let's snug it up. Just make sure that that's nice and snug. Once you know it's snug, you can continue onto the next line, which is this one right here.

We're going to take this cap out of here, set that aside so we can use it. Now we're going to get this hose lined up on here. Should come around like this. We've got our line in and started. You'll notice that the way it goes is from the pump goes up and out that way, goes all the way over towards the driver's side. It comes down and around, down through here. Then it comes along the top of the box. It comes out this way and then down. If you set it up a different way, it might come around this way and get caught up against your fan, so you need to pay special attention to that. If you have it going in the wrong way, you want to make sure that it's not going to hit up against your fan, your belt, power steering pump, all sorts of things. Just put it going the right way. We'll snug this up.

Just get a longer wrench on here now. Just make sure it's snug. There it is. Just want to make sure that your line can't still pivot around. It's going to move around a little bit, but it shouldn't be able to pivot inside that fitting. That feels really good. We'll just make sure that it's not hitting anywhere against the box. I'm just going to pry that away just a little bit right along here. I can feel that it's super close. If I go like this, I can hear a ticking. Perfect. I'm not hitting against the box anymore. Any place that you have rubbing, it's going to cause an issue down the road because every vibration and bump you hit, it's going to cause a little bit of wear on this metal and that's going to cause a leak. That feels good. Let's continue.

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