My son's Bravo JTD loses power steering fluid, but there is no apparent leak at the pump, rack or reservoir.
I can find neat fluid along a metal pipe underneath the battery tray, which is covered with a braided protection. Because of the braid, I can't find the exact leak yet. This pipe seems to be connected to a U bend of metal pipe that runs in front of the rad. I can't find any reference to this in my Bravo Manual CD. Is it some sort of fluid cooler that cools the oil before it gets to the steering pump? If so then I assume this leaking pipe is a low pressure pipe & could be sealed with solder/epoxy/whatever Does anyone have any experience of this

i've never noticed that pipe before so i cant really comment, although i've had the battety tray out on a few bravo/as and never noticed the pipe, so maybe its a JTD only part? surely replacing the pipe with a scrapyard part would be the easiest solution, although you're correct, if its not under pressure it can be sealed easily.

jug said:

i've never noticed that pipe before so i cant really comment, although i've had the battety tray out on a few bravo/as and never noticed the pipe, so maybe its a JTD only part? surely replacing the pipe with a scrapyard part would be the easiest solution, although you're correct, if its not under pressure it can be sealed easily.

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Ah - you wouldn't have noticed it! It & it's return pipe is cunningly hidden below the aircon pipes. Bloody stupid really, there's plenty of room just to have mounted the pipe into some rubber finger type clips below the tray. I reckon its the return from the rack to the reservoir via this U bend cooler thingy. Anyway:-
I cut back that poxy braid - it seems to be made of carbon fibre or something really tough, then undid some of those appalling clips holding the pipes, levered the pipes into view & found a crack right underneath where the metal clip gripped. This all took about two hours - what a waste of time. I've temporarily sealed the leak with a split rubber pipe held over the pinhole with a jubilee clip. Seems OK so far. Long term repair will be to cut the pipe & re-join it with a 10MM compression fitting available from any plumbers merchant.
0 outof 10 to FIAT, completely over engineered (amazingly) & the over engineering actually caused the failure.

Still it's better than replacing a pump or the rack ( or these stupid pipes too for that matter)