After addressing several other issues on the Scion, I finally got the opportunity to get under this car to address this problem. Because of the location of the hose, the best and safest way to address this problem was to put the car on ramps. I would have to slide well under this thing to access the hose ends and there's no way in hell I'd do this with the car on jacks. With the car on jacks I was plenty able to slide under the car with plenty of clearance. The relief was short lived as I had to look at a way to get a wrench on the bolt that holds the end of the hose to the power steering pump. The bolt was a 17mm wrench. While I could've used a socket, getting one in there where it would've stayed on and not destroyed my knuckle when the bolt did give way.
Once I got the bolt off I had to take care not to lose the double washer piece that seals the end of the hose. This hose is a high pressure hose and the end plus the washers are similar to many brake lines where they bolt to a caliper. I wanted to save the double washer since the new hose came with two single washers, which I did not want to tr and keep in place in those tight quarters while trying to put the new hose back in place. The next thing I had to address was a bracket that held the high and low side hoses stationary so they wouldn't move around during normal operation. This was a single 10mm bolt that once out, the bracket was separated and the hoses were free. On the rack and pinion the two hoses are connected with compression nuts. Unfortunately the low pressure hose had to come off in order to remove the high pressure hose (the one we're replacing). These compression nuts are 17mm as well. I was able to access these from the left fender so it wasn't too bad. I didn't bust a knuckle getting these fittings loose. Once the hoses were loose, I was able to start removing our crappy hose. I had to take my time working the hose out, moving out the metal end that was plugged to the R&P more out from under the car while working the pump end of the hose out enough then pulling the middle portion out, working the rest of the hose completely out. With the hose completely out, I was able to get our new hose and start working on putting the new one back in, carefully working the ends in. I had to be careful so as to not damage the rubber portion of the hose. When I went to bolt the end back onto the power steering pump, I ended up having to remove the feed hose that connects to the oil reservoir. I should've removed this from the beginning, but I was trying to get away with not removing so much shit and that backfired. I was able to get the hose off no problem, another reason why it was stupid not to remove it from the beginning. Once I got that off I was better able to get the bolt lined up and put back in. Of course I ended up reusing the double washer, as stated before, because I wasn't about to try and keep the two single washers in place. With the power steering pump end of the hose secured, I moved on to the rack and pinion side. I got the compression fittings back on and secured, but on our high pressure hose I had to orient the hose in a way where it was as close to the base of the bracket as possible. I had to bend the metal tube portion some to get it where it needed to be. Even after tightening the compression nut, I ended up having to loosen the bolt that holes the whole bracket assembly. This allowed me to turn the bracket assembly to be better able to get the new hose lined up enough to get it clamped in. I did have to take the old plastic bushing material from the old hose and use it on the new hose so when I put the bracket piece back on, it would hold the new hose tighter. Afterward I reattached the reservoir hose and tightened it up. I made one final check on all connections to make sure everything was tight. I filled the reservoir up and started the car. Of course, the system sucked down the oil that was initially put in the reservoir, requiring me to add another reservoir's worth of oil to get it topped off. I had to work the tires slightly side to side, since the car was on ramps, but that was enough to work the air out of the system as well as ensure that the system was completely full of oil. With that, I was able to back the car off the ramps and conclude this project on a good note. No leaks, system works as designed, I consider that a win!
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