Power Seering issues

[guymon]

I feel like this car is a high maintenance girlfriend. I get done with replacing the rear differential and now the power steering is acting up.

I'll give you a little background. I sent the car to get aligned after replacing the rear differential. The alignment shop says they can't do it because the front tie rods need replacing. Yea, I know that, it's on the list. They give me a price to do it and I say fine do it and align it. I get the car back and 6 hours later the power steering is groaning and making noises. I suspect it's just coincidence that its happening after I let someone else work on it. We've all had that happen. I check the fluid and it's low. I add some CHF 11s and it's still groaning and hard to turn while stopped. Next I get the front wheels off the ground and everything seems OK (No resistance). I then flush all the fluid and add new. Bleed the lines by turning the wheel full lock 10-15 times and hold it there 10 seconds each time. I top off the fluid, lower the car all seems much better. I take it for a drive, and within a few miles it's groaning and hard to turn at slow speeds again.

I can't see a leak anywhere, but maybe air is getting in somewhere. The reservoir and return pipe look good and intact. Anybody have any other thoughts on this?


Note: Yes I know steering has a "T" in it. Can't edit titles.

[howardc64]

Is the PS fluid low again? If so, you have a leak. Common leak spots are at the bottom of reservoir to the hose that feeds PS pump. I've just added a screw clamp in the past for a cheap quick fix.

I've read people found reservoir interior pickup tube getting loose. Not sure how you would check for that.

Other leak spots are the rack seals where the inner tie rods are. Easy to see if the boots are wet on the bottom.

[guymon]

PS fluid level does not seem to be going down and the reservoir tube is intact. FYI, it's the return tube not a pickup tube. I can't seem to see any leaks.

[guymon]

Well, I replaced the power steering rack. I got one of eBay for $75. If it looked bad I would flip for a rebuild. It came, and looked GREAT. Compared to mine which was rusted and looked gross. This one had no rust and all the lines looked great. My original one, the lines were looking corroded. Checked it out, and seemed good. Installed it and it works great. Flushed the system and all is good. This is a PITA job which involves supporting the engine and lowering the sub frame. I did have the issue of the steering column bearing and rubber boot coming loose. After reading that Howard had the same issue, it was easily solved (Thanks Howard).

Here are some photos of my make sift engine support (I added a 2x4 after this photo as it was sagging a bit), and what I found on my power steering rack, after I removed it. There were no leaks from it or in the boots. But I did find the plastic stop on one end was shattered and the other one had a crack. So did the shop that put the new inner tie rods do this, or what happened. Are these known to break. So a thought process is this broke and caused the car to be able to be oversteered and this somehow wrecked the rack?

Under the car I noticed it's leaking oil (Blah. I have the PVC oil trap cleanup on my list) and the right CV axle is spaying grease even though there is no tear in the boot.

I feel like I've been living under that car for a few weeks.

[howardc64]

hey, nice makeshift engine torque bar I'd imagine 2 pieces sitting vertically might offer more secure feel or a big 4x4 I got a harbor freight engine support bar on sale and have used a few times since. Quite handy on these Euro cars that often require subframe drops. Use it 3x now for the rack job, removing the valvebody, and removed a VW MK4 tranny to replace a torque convertor.

On the CV axle, I also had a leak as well on the driver side before, i just crimped the clamp ears a bit tighter and it stopped. Here is the thread.

http://www.volvoxc.com/forums/showth...ailed-CV-clamp

On the plastic ends on the rack... mine looked pretty clean on 2 cars when I did the inner tie rods. I would guess the last replacement might be the source of damage.

At 130k miles, I think you are almost out of living under the car haha...

[guymon]

Howard, I think my CV axle is doing the same as yours was. I'll tighten that up. Thanks.

[guymon]

So after Howard mentioned the bottom of the reservoir hose clamp. I checked the clamp and tighten it up. But their is slight bit of weeping (might be the crack issue with these). My question is. Is this enough to draw air into the system? I'll order a new reservoir now as it's just another thing to add to the list.

[howardc64]

That hose is pretty lengthy. You probably can cut a small piece off the end to get fresh rubber on the reservoir. I also use screw clamps and I think I used 2 clamps once to keep it from weeping.

[skibo]

With the engine running, and after the groaning has started, look inside the PS reservoir. If the fluid is foamy then your return tube has probably fallen off.

This causes the fluid to get foaming, which causes the groaning and difficult steering.

[jkochis]

Return tube... if you look inside the reservoir and see a brass tube at the top the plastic return tube has fallen off. Was like a 10 minute fix using new turkey baster and refill with new fluid.