According to Spartan, the power steering fluid and filters should be changed every two years. Sounds like something I can do. Called Spartan. Told them I think the reservoir is in the chassis battery compartment. It's a round canister, about 5" in diameter, 10" high, has a dip stick on top and a couple of big hoses coming out of it. There's a drain bolt on the bottom so looks like an easy thing to drain. But he told me there is an aluminum manifold bolted to the frame rail that has 5 lines to it and bolts on the top and bottom. He said take the bolts out and make sure the valves they have are not coated with gunk. Don't take the 5 lines off. Can't seem to find the aluminum manifold. Saw an aluminum block thing but it only had some wires to it and one small braided line. After reading most of the posts on 'power steering', this may be a bigger job than I expected. Like, how do you get the fluid out of the lines to and from the gear box. And apparently some of the Barths had the power steering fluid going to the clutch on the fan? I'm quickly getting out of my depth. Would appreciate some guidance.

Is there any reason I can't do this the same way one can completely drain a automatic transmission? I've done it with Volvos before. Put a hose on the end of the return line and let it feed into a jug, start the engine and let the power steering pump, pump fluid through the system while continually introducing new fluid into the reservoir. When you see the fluid in the jug start to look clean, stop, top everything off and you're done. Too simple an idea?
Jim

Yes, you could do it that way, don't know what your existing fluid looks like, it may be difficult to see the change. I would just drain from the bottom of the reservoir, refill, start/shut down and do this 3 times, you will get 90% +/- of the old stuff out.

I changed mine because I had a bad leaky power steering unit up front, so when I took that off, it drained all the fluid out.

I don't know what Spartan people are talking about, if it is the same as mine there is no "manifold" just the reservoir with one large supply hose (that was way too long) to the PS pump, and the return hose.

Pressures and volumes in the PS system can be high so use caution if you recycle oil while running.

Somewhat like ED---- I pumped out the large canister, replaced the filter and refilled. Will probably do this annually for a year or two. Our canister had about a 2 gallon (US) capacity.

Regards

Bud

Bud, where did you get the cannister? Do you know if the one in the 5.9 is different that the 8.3?
Thanks
Jim

The canister is near the batteries in our coach. The filter I think I purchased from Car- Quest-- I think (make that know !)that Spartan would be cheaper! There is also a gasket between the top of the canister and the lid-- I wanted to also change this but an ordering miscommunication makes this a next years task. Spartan has the details on what is in your coach-- which canister, filter, gasket etc-- however I do not know if the 5.9 and the 8.3 have different canisters.

Regards
Bud

For sure if Bud used 2 gallons, that is a lot bigger than the one in my coach. I don't think mine holds more than 2-3 quarts, that with 60 feet of hose (30 up and 30 back) I doubt if it would take more than 1 gallon total.

Probably the 8.3 capacity is larger because I think the 8.3 uses the same hydraulic system to run the fan.

I don't know what is is called but you can get a fluid evaluator and attach a hose to draw all the old fluid out as I think Bud did.

Most 8.3Ls use a belt-driven fan and rear radiator. I agree, 2 gals. seems high; even with Hydroboost and a P/S actuator for the parking brake, mine uses around 3 qt.

Just to clarify previous post-- the 2 gallons was from the canister only (i.e. was only a partial exchange of the hydraulic capacity of the system).As ours is a side radiator cooling system, the fan is hydraulically driven. Spartan may have an idea as to the total volume in the system, but I did not try a total drain-down.

Regards
Bud