power steering problem

Hi all I have just purchased a 1996 discovery 300tdi, i pulled up at home and found a small pool of oil under her at the front of the old girl, she has done 173451 miles. It appears to be atf oil leaking from the power steering pump area.
I have noticed it starts to make a whining noise after she starts to get warm and it gets slightly louder when she is up to temperature, she doesn’t appear to be leaking heavily, nor dose the whine get any louder when turning from lock to lock.
I ran her on idle last night for 10 minutes and it doesn’t appear to leak while running on idle but it was dark and I only had a small torch to inspect it, bou when you inspect her later there is a small pool of oil.
i checked the oil lastnight and this evening and visualy it dosent appear to have droped.
I intend to look at her better tomorrow if I get home from work in daylight.
Any ideas?
Thanks for your time
baz

disco dude said:

Hi all I have just purchased a 1996 discovery 300tdi, i pulled up at home and found a small pool of oil under her at the front of the old girl, she has done 173451 miles. It appears to be atf oil leaking from the power steering pump area.
I have noticed it starts to make a whining noise after she starts to get warm and it gets slightly louder when she is up to temperature, she doesn’t appear to be leaking heavily, nor dose the whine get any louder when turning from lock to lock.
I ran her on idle last night for 10 minutes and it doesn’t appear to leak while running on idle but it was dark and I only had a small torch to inspect it, bou when you inspect her later there is a small pool of oil.
i checked the oil lastnight and this evening and visualy it dosent appear to have droped.
I intend to look at her better tomorrow if I get home from work in daylight.
Any ideas?
Thanks for your time
baz

Click to expand...

Hiya baz, can you be a bit more precise about where the pool of oil is - ie. is it under the p.a.s. steering box, under the pipes between the p.a.s. oil header tank and the pump or where?

Often you get leaks from the base of the header tank, look at the pipes underneath. This is often due to slack circlips on the pipes. Otherwise it can be the pipes themselves, the pump or, most likely the steering box.

Good luck

Dave

looks like from the pump and down the pipes, i will inspect the header tank tonight and the pipe fitting

cheers

disco dude said:

looks like from the pump and down the pipes, i will inspect the header tank tonight and the pipe fitting

cheers

Click to expand...

The leak is often from the pipes themselves so usually the only choice is to replace them - not cheap, sorry.

mine is a 2002 disco and the ATF leaks appear around the hose close to the suction inlet line of the power steering pump. From what i have seen, it's only the hose that gets soaked and then drops to the ground. any clue on what i can do to get this issue resolved.