I am sure that most understand this--but the 15 to 30 lbs on the Hyanutic Resivoir is on the low pressure side of the system--and is not subject to high hyraulic pressure. Basically it is to be sure that there is always a pressure on the fluid to keep the system full of hyraulic fluid. I have always felt that if the high pressure hyraulic lines are opened for any reason, that the entire system needs to be bled. Doing this with the resivoir is possible, but one can also use a manual pump brake fluid purging system (with the correct hyraulic fluid). One example if Power Bleeder from Motive Products--the Universal bleeder and a couple of fluild collection bottles will cost less than $100. There are also 12 volt or 110 volt power bleeders which will do the bleed even faster. Even though the hyraulic system can operate at 1000 lbs or so--most of the time the pressues are far less than that. Getting back to the emergency tiller part of the thread--we were having Hyanutic steering problems when we got to Bermuda--We had taken the boat about 8,000 miles by that time. One of the first things the factory told us to do was to take the emergency tiller and see how much force it took to over come the hyraulic ram--and it was close to 1000 lbs. Some systems may also have pressure relief valves at the far extremes to avoid excessive pressures. It turned out in our case, that there were small particles of copper shavings left in the lines and they had cut into the seals--so not only did we have to replace both pumps, but the rams, and purge the lines. Scott, I would suggest that you rig up a collection system to save the fluid, and then using the resivoir purge the entire system now. What you describe is more than one should expect. These boats have many tens if not hundreds of thousands of miles by now--and if there was a design problem it would be well known. Bob Austin