Power Steering Leak diagnosis and repair 2010 Ford F-150 Lariat

Are you losing power steering fluid?  Have you tried to locate where and why?

This one had me going nuts.  I started experiencing the age old wheezing sound and when i checked under the hood, the condenser had splatters of oil on it.  I figured of course some sort of hose had went, but i could not locate the leak.



Firs thing I did was check the power steering oil level.
The bottle is located on the driver side behind the radiator.  The cap does not have an identification informing you this is for power steering fluid, but rest assured it is.  There is a min and max line on the side of the white bottle.













I used STP with stop leak in the hope that i would magically fix things.. Of course this was not the case as I found I was still draining a bottle a week.  After a few weeks of monitoring, it was time to really figure out what the heck was going on.















So here is what we have under the hood.  The condenser with an external transmission cooler mounted in front.  When following the hoses from the power steering fill bottle, I found they went into the condenser on the top driver side. After some back and forth and head scratching I confirmed that YES, the power steering cooler is built into the AC condenser.  that explains how there is fluid leaking out on both sides of the ac condenser.

This brought me back to a previous diagnosis from a mechanic "Hey, your condenser has a slight leak. do you want us to replace it"  I recall having the AC working like a dream and figuring, no way.. i'll pass until the air stops working.  Little did i know...