Bleeding a Honda Power Steering System?

I'm getting a little frustrated with this:  My sister has an '04 CR-V that was making a terrible bearing noise in the power steering pump.  I grabbed a new pump, installed it, filled the system, put the nose in the air, turned the wheels back and forth a few times, topped it off with the genuine Honda fluid, and it seemed fine.  Pretty much like the other power steering pumps I've done before.

This time, however, she complained that it was a little stiff still, so I went to take a look at it.  The fluid level looks good, and if you just start it up and start turning the wheels everything is fine.  If you rev it up past about 1,500 RPM, however, you lose power steering.  Idle it back down for a couple seconds and everything comes back fine.  It makes a little bit of a noise from around 1,500 to about 2,200.  I just put the front end back up in the air and turned the wheels back and forth for about 15-20 minutes.  No change.  I assume it's related to the pump because despite the awful noise it was making, the steering worked just fine before.  Do I have some kind of massive bubble in the system that won't come loose?  Is there some sort of special procedure that this thing needs to bleed?

Could be a bad pump.  Reman pumps seem to be about a 1 in 3 chance of getting a bad one.  Unless you meant NEW new, in which case, things happen.

Hondas are pretty good about self bleeding.  Now, there IS a filter in the bottom of the reservoir, very simple screen that return fluid goes in above and the feed to the pump comes out under it.  I've seen these plug up enough to cause problems on a (single) Toyota, there could be something to this.

Most Honda P/S problems I have seen were the O-ring to the pump inlet would shrink, allowing the pump to suck air.  This is notable by the fluid foaming up when cold, along with a lot of pump whine, but this goes away when things warm up, and then the pump self bleeds.

I vote bad pump. If you have the old one, I would see if it can be rebuilt. 

Also thinking bad pump, specifically something wrong with the pressure relief valve.

It was a new, new pump.  It just seems to be all fine and bled until you hit 1,500 RPM and then it fills itself up with air again.  I guess I'll RMA the pump and try again.  The original is still hanging around somewhere, but I'm not sure where I'd go to have someone rebuild that.

Is there an O-ring on the pump inlet?  Did the pump come with a new inlet or did you have to use the old one?

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Well, until you asked the question and made me think about it, I was pretty sure that it came with a new o-ring and I used it.  But now, trying to think back, for all I know, I may have just smeared mustard on it and called it good.  I do remember that there was a new fitting to the reservoir  - which has to be removed and clocked 180 degrees - and the fitting off to the rack was of course part of the hydraulic hose.

It's a pretty easy thing to try slipping a new o-ring on, though, so I can give that an attempt.

The O ring I mean is on the part you had to reclock.  That is a weird size that only reliably can come from Honda.

And why do the pumps come with it clocked wrong?

Of course it is!

I don't know why the thing is clocked wrong, but I assume that it's a pump that gets used in different applications.  When I was looking at it next to the old one, I went hunting around and found a couple different videos and whatnot that called that out as a step, so I guess it's a thing?

I have never installed a Honda pump where I didn't have to reclock it.  Even if there were two different applications, they are managing to clock it wrong 100% of the time.

I've had a bunch of Accords, and if I recall correctly either the 2004 or the 2010 developed a power steering problem. A little research turned up a TSB on the issue and an O-ring was the cheap and easy solution.