Power steering failure! Grrr

chris1roll · Post by **chris1roll** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:26 pm

Well, it had been feeling heavy for a good few weeks now in the mornings, but yesterday decided to pack up altogether.
Turned the wrong way out of my drive thinking i was going somewhere else first, and the decided to turn round via a side road with a traffic island in it. at the point at which i was half way around the island, the power steering decided it didn't want to help me any more, (for a sec i thought the engine had cut out) leaving me with an almost herculean ask to complete the turn and not go onto the pavement. when its warmed up it gets a lot better, but still aint right:

Symptoms:
Virtually no assistance when cold,
makes a hideous whining noise (but then they all do!)
Power steering fluid is _black_ rather than red.
It is much easier to steer to the left than to the right (this makes things very interesting!)
on very tight full lock turns, the steering kind of "locks" onto full lock.

I'm 99.99% sure its the rack.
just been checking online and the cheapest so far is 99.98+VAT from GSF. Seeing as how i have to tax it the in 5 days time, i think it'll be one from one of the parts cars going in, which means i have to do it twice. Cool.
I shal change the pump too, cos i'm sure the black fluiod probably hasn't done it much good, and we have loads of them.

Anyway, before i remove all the skin from my knuckles and ingest ATF next week, i would like the opinions of all of you to agree its the rack!

what makes it all the more funny is that before it went, I saw one on E-bay, reconditioned, for a tenner, and thought "shall i get that as a spare" and decided that i would probably only need to change the yukky fluid so didn't bother.

rpruen · Post by **rpruen** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:56 pm

Um... Chris

The seals in the rack have gone hard. That's why no asistance when cold (warm fluid softens and swells the seals). Also proly why there is more 'help' in one direction than the other.

I suspect the black in the fluid is the seals, so it shouldn't do the pump too much harm. But if you have a spare pump it won't hurt to put it on.

I thought you where all out of power steering racks? Or is Edds old one ok?

Richard

MatBat · Post by **MatBat** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:43 pm

Make her a real sports car and ditch the power steering, use a rack from a 440!

chris1roll · Post by **chris1roll** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 10:36 pm

Well, theres a rack in the white one, ok so its (probably, unless it was replaced) done 162k, but it was working when i got it, and it won't cost 130 quid. Plus then i can do something interesting with my money this year. (last year i got a clutch and a propshaft mounting for the 740. woooo.)
I was toying with the idea of a 440 Li rack, cos it would only cost 30 quid! which would be ok, but i do too many miles to go without the P/S I think.
Update, i'm sure I can smell ATF when parking now. nice.

chris1roll · Post by **chris1roll** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 11:01 pm

Incidentally, since changing the rack made no difference to edds drifting to the left problem, i think its fairly safe to say, as i did at the time, that his rack is/was fine. unforunately knowing our place, its probably full of shit by now.

rpruen · Post by **rpruen** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 10:38 am

chris1roll wrote:Incidentally, since changing the rack made no difference to edds drifting to the left problem, i think its fairly safe to say, as i did at the time, that his rack is/was fine. unforunately knowing our place, its probably full of shit by now.

It should be ok, it's still full of oil, so flushing it out should do the trick. It's not had long enough for the seals to dry out.

Richard

lee · Post by **lee** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 5:02 pm

it sounds like the rack to me. But something to bear in mind. I once saw a rear engine mount break and the mount dented the power steering rack making it go like the way you are describing. Then after a few more miles it cut through the pipe and ATF was going everywhere.

chris1roll · Post by **chris1roll** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 8:41 pm

Well, the rack is changed, and the fluid is flushed through and bled. seem slighter, but i haven't driven it till i get it tracked. could do without a new set of tyres yet!
Wasn't actually that hard, I'd say 4 hours all in, I had to do a lot of running about after track rods so it took all day.
Getting the rack out was ok-ish, nut getting the new one in however, was more of a manual dexterity puzzle than the rear engine mount on richards car. I was under there for about half an hour and then suddenly it went in.
Feels a lot lighter when bleeding it, and moving about the yard, but thats hardly surprising when you saw what came out of it.

Some pics (big cos i'm lazy)

steering column clamp bolt removed/ unions disconnected:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/ ... 040012.jpg
that was a little tricky to get to.

EEEWWW, ATF isn't supposed to look like this!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/ ... 040013.jpg
all nice and red now though

then the battery ran out..

chris1roll · Post by **chris1roll** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 6:54 pm

All tracked and looking good!

Tracking was way way way off the scale, had such a large amount of toe in that the car understeered at parking speeds, and i travelled 3miles to the garage at a max of 30mph and the tyres were all scuffed, hot and smelly.
Mechanic said "I bet that was fun to drive like that!"

Think this is the first time i've actually been satisfied by the result of having the tracking done, the wheel is straight to go straight. Still pulls left a bit, but then being lowered it will.

bbf · Post by **bbf** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:07 pm

if i look at that picture:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/ ... 040012.jpg
i remember my ES had that cross, where the shaft conects to the steering gear (can't realy translate that, not even mentioned in parts) where the screw is missing. The cross was very worn out, it had so much play in it, it was all dry, the roadhandling was a nightmare at 100 kmh and more. do you folks had any similar problems with it? coz i suspect my shaft in Turbo to be going the same way.

Murf · Post by **Murf** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:33 pm

i think its called a knuckle joint. its kinda like a mini universal joint and the little pins in it develop play over time.is it not in vadis?

chris1roll · Post by **chris1roll** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:49 pm

they called it a pinion, its like the splined shaft for the steering wheel, except it has a notch in it for the bolt to lock in place.

bbf · Post by **bbf** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:06 pm

not in vadis:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v37/b ... /shf1t.jpg
the part 25 is a full sahft with that knucle joint attached to it. actualy the sahft can go on two if you pull it appart (it's got a rubber coupling for amortisation). the worn-out joint is at the lower [25].

chris1roll · Post by **chris1roll** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:10 pm

aaah, yes i was confused, the part in my pic is the lower portion of that,
part 7 in your pic is the nut I removed.
the universal joint bits of part 25, are prone to getting loose.
I thought you meant the splined shaft part, on the rack, inside the lower part of the knuckle.