Car is an early 1986 S4.

I was looking at replacing my power steering lines (I'll just have my local hydraulic shop make a set), and there is a metal line loop that goes out in front of the rad, across to the passenger's side of the vehicle, turns around 180 degrees, and then goes back up to it's start point. It is in the Power Steering section of the FSM, section 10B page 2. I was curious what the purpose was of said line. The fact that the fluid is purposely redirected into the incoming airflow seems to suggest it is for cooling. I found the following threads (some of which are for FDs, but the principle is the same), which seem to indicate that it is there to cool the fluid:

power steering cooler
Power steering loop -- what is it?
replacing power steering loop / coolant line
powersteering cooler line removal

Honestly, I just don't buy that it has any real cooling qualities. I'm sure the fluid would lose a tiny amount of heat, but it probably isn't anything substantial given the relatively small surface area of the line. And replacing it with a cooler would be counter-intuitive for me, since the whole reason I am trying to eliminate it is that I am future-proofing in case I need to alter the cooling setup in the future and the free space would be useful.

The FSM doesn't even give it a part number or name, so that doesn't shed any light on it.

My only other thought is that maybe it is a way of adding capacity, and the extra fluid is somehow beneficial to the system's operation. This would be great, because all I would have to do is have one of the new hydraulic hoses made with some extra length, and then cable tie it out of the way in the engine bay. But then if that were the case the line would probably be in an out of the way location from the factory.

I'm curious to see if anyone has eliminated the line and what the results were. One of the users in the last thread I posted above indicated that he was able to eliminate them, but his/her last logon was 2011 so I expect they wouldn't respond to a PM. If I had a spare power steering pump and rack, I'd bite the bullet and be the guinea pig. But since I don't, I thought I'd ask.

Thanks, Chris.

 

 

Alright, well then that's solved.

Still curious to see if anyone has removed it and if it had adverse effects, but I'd assume that if Mazda felt they needed the cooling loop it probably won't be a good idea to eliminate it. Perhaps I will be the guinea pig.

 

You can probably remove it and have no problems. The car was designed to function in a wide range of temps. If you drive a lot of windy roads, I would not remove it though.