Steering pumps
 

Will a 2003 Windstar pump fit the bracket on a 2004 Freestar?

Go to www.rockauto.com and see if the pumps have the same part number between the two models..

Steering Stiffness
 

Im also experiencing this same kind of steering stiffness. I will take a good look under the car at the U-joint and see if a lube will help. I’d just got it to stop leaking PS fluid yesterday after changing the pressure hose—what a pain. Since I figured it might be the pump and mine is a lifetime warranty flavor, I figured “eh why not?”. Turns out that only caused me more time and hassle than it was worth when I had to break the seal on a perfectly fine connection that wasn’t leaking. After replacing the pump though now comes the pressure line leak at the fitting (you know from the back of the fitting that’ll never stop ever in life until you replace the hose entirely?) so now with new pump, new pressure hose and tight leak-free connections I’m still struggling to steer the Windstar just like before. Yaaayy!!! I’m tired, but (more broke than tired so) I’m stuck with the Windstar for now. The rack is only a year old so I’m really not implicating it as the culprit. I’ll do the penetrant test on the U-joint and see if that fixes anything. If so I’ve got some lithium grease that’ll add more durable lubrication.

Lubing the U-Joints
 

Lubing the U-joints had no effect on the steering stiffness. I’m really wondering if the pressure switch circuit could cause these problems. That’s a relatively new pressure switch swapped in 2 months ago. Maybe I could just try to flush out the whole system. Maybe the rack is gunked up with metal shavings. That switch sprung a leak then and the whole system went dry until I could get home with it to change it. Anyone have any really affective flushing methods that could possibly free a PS system of contaminants

Power steering flush
 

Found one:

PS Flush
 

And still another: