PSA: PLEASE don?t destroy parts at the wrecking yard!

[StorminMatt]

The other day, I went to a Pick and Pull a couple of hours away because I needed to get a power steering cooler for my S13. Because 240s are SO rare, I was willing to take a chance driving down there. When I got there, I noticed that the car was pretty picked over. But laying out in front was the power steering cooler, just waiting for me to grab it. Unfortunately, rather than using a wrench and taking a couple of minutes to unscrew the line from the rack, someone thought it would be easier to just grab a pair of shears and hack it off. The result was a perfectly good power steering cooler rendered useless. Unfortunately, the same is true in SO many other cases. Now if you are grabbing a part for a common car, no biggie. But 240s (and 240 parts) are SO incredibly rare that we should make every effort to keep parts in usable condition for others in the community. After all, that seemingly worthless part may not be attainable elsewhere. And someone might really NEED it. That SOMEONE could be YOU someday.

[anti tyler]

While I do agree with you to not destroy old stuff, a cooler like that should be pretty damn easily obtainable?

[AKADriver]

You kind of have to get lucky finding any of the factory power steering stuff in usable condition. Even where a suitable aftermarket replacement exists they're often missing things, like the little bracket that holds the high pressure line to the left side tension rod bracket, it was already missing on my car and aftermarket lines don't come with it, even though they do for other cars. The factory hardlines aren't very well protected from corrosion and the fittings are often stripped so buying them from a partout sight unseen can be a gamble.

Of course going full aftermarket with braided hose and an inline cooler is always possible but that isn't the point.

[StorminMatt]

Originally Posted by anti tyler

While I do agree with you to not destroy old stuff, a cooler like that should be pretty damn easily obtainable?

No, it isn?t. While you can buy various types of aftermarket coolers, they all require custom lines and fittings, and may present significant mounting challenges (depending on how you have your car set up). The cooler I was looking for is the actual OEM cooler, which connects to the steering rack on the low pressure side. It consists of a hard line which runs along the front of the engine cradle from the outlet on the driver side to the passenger side, where it loops back to the driver?s side. It terminates at a hose barb, which connects to a hose that returns to the reservoir. This, of course, is an actual OEM Nissan piece. And there are ZERO drop-in aftermarket replacements for it.

[StorminMatt]

Originally Posted by AKADriver

You kind of have to get lucky finding any of the factory power steering stuff in usable condition. Even where a suitable aftermarket replacement exists they're often missing things, like the little bracket that holds the high pressure line to the left side tension rod bracket, it was already missing on my car and aftermarket lines don't come with it, even though they do for other cars. The factory hardlines aren't very well protected from corrosion and the fittings are often stripped so buying them from a partout sight unseen can be a gamble.

Of course going full aftermarket with braided hose and an inline cooler is always possible but that isn't the point.

Sure, parts can always be bad from a wrecking yard. But my point is that they are often good, especially if all you are looking for is a simple hard line (as was my case). The problem is that people often needlessly damage these sorts of rare parts just to save a few minutes getting the parts they wanted. And this is by no means limited to steering parts.

[AKADriver]

Yeah I'm agreeing with you/countering the idea that this stuff is not worth being careful with it. It's extremely frustrating and just as frustrating when everyone's answer to "I can't find this OEM part" is "why can't just just replace it all with aftermarket parts (that don't work the same way)"

The one thing I would say is that this part could be replicated, with a good tubing bender and flaring tool. It is just a length of tube with a flare fitting at one end and a bubble flare hose connection at the other. Obviously more work than just finding an OEM one and more cost if you don't own those tools.