[Corona]

Hi all,
My NG900 has a bit of a steering issue. Ever since buying it a couple of years ago it's had a slight pull to the left, ie you need constant downforce on right hand of steering wheel to keep it straight. It's not just road-steer, although I'm in Australia so it does pull to that side, but I've played the drive-on-the-other-side-of-the-road-to-check game and it's more than that. On top of that, a few months ago the steering seemed to get heavier over a relatively short period of time. PS Pump seems to be fine and I replaced the fluid to no affect.
I just got my timing belt replaced (v6) and Lee at the local indy did a great look over the car and found all the little niggling things that also needed doing - new water pump (done), new idler & tensioner pulleys on aux belt (done), new transmission mount (done), new rocker seal (what's new, I'll do it again soon), a couple more little things, and lastly, he said the steering rack has an internal leak and should get replaced. This would explain the heavier steering, and possibly the pull to the left???

Looking for some advice, Lee said it'd be AU$1600 odd to replace (aft rack inc labor) which I'm inclined to put off indefinitely, unless this is a job I could do myself. Is it possible to replace internal seals, or if I was to find a second hand unit from the wreckers to take a gamble on, how hard is it to change over? I consider myself quite capable, but don't have facilities to do much more than single-afternoon style jobs. Or is there a seal-fixit stuff that'd work in power steering fluid that might get it working better for a while?
Or I just ignore it and have semi-manual steering, I'm pretty sure there's still some assist there, just not as much as there should be.

Thanks in advance,
Andrew

 

[jstrowe]

I haven't tried to touch the rack, so I can't give any advice with that. Since you can look along the rack and see daylight at the other side, it looks like it should not be hard to get out.

As far as the pulling, have you had the alignment (front and rear) checked? I normally think alignment problems with pulling, not steering rack problems. Also, are the tires wearing evenly? If not, that also points to alignment.

John

 

[Corona]

I had always assumed it was likely an alignment issue, but it had a whole set of front end work done (at the same shop) about a year ago, tie rod ends and control rods, and an alignment to go with it, and they said they couldn't see a reason for the pulling then, although the work had improved it somewhat. It's had new tires a couple of times and tire rotations to no change, so I'm hoping the problem might be in the rack. That being said, I'm not sure if a full 4 wheel alignment was done, so that's something it should probably go in for anyway.

Andrew