The past few days have not been kind to my 2002 SS. I went out and started it up Thursday to go to work and it started pumping power steering fluid on the ground. My dad and I looked it over and found out that the hose slipped off so we put it back on and put a new clamp on and refilled it. Well it's such a pain to get to we ended up overfilling it and now we have to try and get some back out. There also seemed to be a good bit of grit and dirt in the old fluid that was pumped out. I may have to look into a flush when the weather gets warmer. It's been around ten degrees here for the past few days. Anyway....the power steering is all fixed minus getting the extra fluid out. So today I go out and look things over and check the oil. I noticed that my plastic engine cover was a little dirty so I took it off to clean it and noticed that my one engine mount didn't look right. Turns out somehow the mounting bracket totally broke!!! It is some thick metal too but somehow it broke right thru right where it bolts to the engine. I have no idea how long it was like this and had no ill effects from it. It was extremely hard to get a picture of but I will attach two and I circled what broke and where. Once we get it out I will upload better pictures. My dad said he has never in his life seen one of these break. Then I also noticed that for some reason antifreeze is very slowly leaking out from under the plastic intake close to where the thermostat is. That intake is only about two years old. We replaced it with a brand new one. Any suggestions on what to do with that? The car just hit 120,000 miles and these are the only real problems with it. I am wondering if this extreme cold weather has anything to do with it. It has been in the negatives when I start it in the mornings. Kind of down in the dumps about these issues but at least they are not major ones.

 

Power steering flush isn't to expensive can get them done at an oil change shop used to do them when I worked at one when I was younger we charged like 50. Cleans all out and fills with new. Coolant pry from intake or the coolant elbow common problem on any Monte Carlo. Engine mounts do go bad and could if broke cuz it had been warm so long

 

I will have to look into the power steering flush. I think it could use one. Thanks for the info. I have heard of engine mounts going bad but have never heard of the mounting bracket breaking. I guess it could happen though but it's so weird. I drive it like grandma on Sunday morning so it's not like the engine is in there romping all around.

 

well one bright thing to look at is that you should be able to easily find these at a junkyard, but it do sucks having to replace things, ive been there....still there actually

 

That mount is known to break if your adding more power almost all the time and I've heard of it breaking on stock cars as well. To fix this issue you can get a engine mount from a supercharged grand prix and swap your ICM and coils onto the gp bracket and then install that. The supercharged bracket is cast iron and I've never heard anyone breaking it. I had to do this swap it works great!

As fad as coolant it could be a leaky gasket you would have to inspect it more to figure out where its coming from.

 

As mentioned, that bracket has broken for a few people. That metal is aluminum, it's a softer/lighter/weaker metal....

As for the leak of coolant near the T-stat, you have lots of possible problems:
- Bad T-stat gasket
- Bad throttle body gasket
- Bad UIM gasket
- Bad UIM
- Depending exactly where, a bad LIM gasket.

Best thing to do, rent a radiator pressure tester and try to find where it's leaking by pressurizing the system and inspecting when the engine is cold and not running. You can look for it bubbling out and listen for it hissing.

 

1 quick tip for sucking out some of the "Extra"/overfilled power steering pump, Would be to use a turkey baster to suck out the excess fluid.

 

if you need another one and cant find it local, i have 2 of them that i am not longer in need of having.

$10 plus actual shipping???

 

Thanks everyone for the information and suggestions. I still haven't been able to fix anything. I have Sunday and Monday off work so those are the only days I can work on it and the past three weeks have literally been nothing but snow and ice those days. So my poor Monte is still just sitting there. I did manage to wash it and get all of that nasty salt and grime off of it. So at least it looks pretty sitting there lol I might get a power steering flush as the new fluid I put in looks like there is dirt floating in it. I got a coupon in the mail for a $129 power steering flush. Seems expensive to me So I am not sure what to do with that yet.





I think I found one that should work. If not I will definitely let you know. Thanks for the offer!!

 

Using seafoam trans tune in your powering steering pump may clean it up pretty good for you and save you a bunch of money, it is only about $10 It is basically a flush for your power steering pump
Do a google search for seafoam. I run it through my cars every 6 months and it keeps them running strong and clean


http://diy-auto-repair.wonderhowto.c...s-tune-408544/

There is a link to a webpage with a video explaining it