95LS400Bob Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 I've been away for a while with many other projects. But here is something I wanted to share with others that I found. My 95 Ls400 began to "digest" power steering fluid. Had no visible leaks but about once every 2 to 3 weeks the power steering would begin moaning...let me know it was low on fluild. I would add just a bit and all was well. The wife made mention of when she started the car cold...she would see blue smoke out the exhaust. It seemed to be getting worse. When I got a chance I started checking things. There are two vacuum lines that run down the power steering pump and rather disappear under the air intake and go to the pump. One of these lines connects to the intake manifold....and that line was very "squishy". Though I saw no fluid in that line I suspected that power steering fluid was somehow sucked into the intake....causing the blue smoke and the low power steering fluid. Since the power steering pump was not externally leaking, I figured I could get a power steering pump seal kit and replace the seals and probably find a bad O ring in the pump. I looked on web catalogs and found the seal kit and ordered it. When I was taking the pump off I found the valve that the vacuum lines connect to. There was no mention of this valve on any of the web pages or on line catalogs. There is a small piston in this valve that uses teflon seals..but the seals were not in the kit. I called my high price Lexus dealer (List price plus 40%) and got the part. It is called a Valve assembly 17630-16040. So if this happens to you..there is the part number you need and you can probably buy it for a whole lot less than $125 that I paid since you now have the part number. It's been a week...no smoke and so far so good. Just a heads up if you have this type of problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bicol-ini Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 hi, youre right on the money on that one, these has a tendency to break due to age and then being sucked on thru the intake which cause your blue smoke upon start up, that part is called air control valve or idel up air valve 17630-16040, which is commonly used by toyota models and lexus models around 70 bucks or less Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blake918 Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 I suspect my air valve is going out (disappearing ps fluid + smokey exhaust sometimes.), but only on occasion do I get a smoke screen when I floor the pedal to get on the highway. It may do it on start-up as well, but it's not enough for me to see in the rear-view, unlike when I merge on to the hwy. Is it supposed to smoke all the time, or only sometimes like my car is doing? Also, does this task just involve unscrewing the old and !Removed! the new back in its place? Or is there more to it than that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bicol-ini Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 hi blake if you got the idle up valve its pretty much straight thru take out the old screw the new one then connect your vacuum hoses, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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