Water in power steering reservoir,how to flush ?.

[gasketface]

Hi all.This is a new one on me but i'm guessing it's been done before.

My mate just bought an 8v gti and previous owner advertised it as needing new steering rack.

After seeing the car and reading between the lines  i'm now thinking that ,erm,"someone who does'nt know what they are doing" (insert words of your own choice here  ) has put water in the power steering reservoir.It does'nt help that someone has painted the dipstick cap with blue paint and the windscreen washer filler cap is red as it's from a different car.

Power steering still works in a fashion but not as it should.

My problem is how do i flush out what's in there as we want to try to salvage whats there and fill it with correct fluid after cleaning.Hopefully it will save having to fit a new rack and possibly the pump as well.

Any ideas ?.

[VW BUSH]

By a big cheapo bottle of atf.
Drain the pump from one of the flexible pipes near the rack and operate the rack manually without engine to purge what you can.
Connect up an fill, run the engine and cycle rack for five minutes.
Repeat with clean fluid until no water is visible.

[itavaltalainen]

VW use hydraulic oil not ATF in the p/s system thou....

ATF (or brake fluid as it will mix with oil and water better) might be ok for flushing once but then flush with VW spec oil TWICE at least.

[VW BUSH]

VW use hydraulic oil not ATF in the p/s system thou....

ATF (or brake fluid as it will mix with oil and water better) might be ok for flushing once but then flush with VW spec oil TWICE at least.

Yeah sorry, I was expecting you to know that it was flushing only....

[gasketface]

Thanks all for your help.Flushed it out with 2 litres of atf and refilled with the proper stuff.

All good