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[pankoboy]

Hi guys, ive been reading through all the posts on here and have decided i have a combination of the problems i have been reading about. So thought id better get some advice.

To cut a long story short, it was wet, traction control kind of worked, car went sideways i corrected with full opposite lock as she snapped back bang. No more power steering, a lot of smoke and a huge red patch on the floor and all over the engine bay. (I then had a 200 mile drive home with no power steering)

Now ive had a look underneath and i cant see anything obviously wrong... i was expecting a huge slit in a hose or something but nothing. Ive tried popping more fluid in start her up and it seems fine until i goto lock... when it then expels everywhere! I was just wondering if anyone had any clues or whether there is a pipe hidden somewhere that commonly fails.... Ive got a new pump but im hoping its not that because it looks like a nightmare to fit?!?

Also prior to it going bang, as in another post, the steering would go heavy occasionally i topped up but didnt make any difference then when in traffic the other day all the guages stopped working the tc and abs and ecu lights came on, (engine still running) then they would all go back on again no worries.... confused.com yes sir!

any help on any of my mass of problems would be fantastic guys! ill post some photos of the beast later today!

[pankoboy]

update--- got the pump out... looks ok, but have no way of telling, but the pipe that feeds the motor? had a big slice in it! however what still worries me is all these other "side affects"... any help is appreciated.

[Kevin Wood]

Well, the hole in the pipe is certainly the main problem. Is there any sign of why this happened? Has it been chafing on something perhaps?

The pressure in the system will reach its' maximum when you hit full lock as the power steering is working hard trying to force the steering against the stops. In this situation the pressure should be limited by a valve in the pump to prevent damage to the system. If the hose was weak it could be that hitting the stop with a lot of revs on was the straw that broke the camel's back. It's also an outside chance that the valve isn't relieving pressure and excessive pressure caused the hose to fail. It all depends on where it has failed and how the damage looks to have been caused.

Rectifying the leak is obviously the first task. While the pump's out maybe there's something you can do to check the relief valve but I'm not familiar with these pumps and whether the valve can be serviced. Considering that the pump has presumably been running dry since the leak dropped all the fluid it might be worth sourcing a second hand replacement along with the defective section of pipe to eliminate any further pump issues.

The ABS/TC light issue is another issue, and could have been responsible for the heavy steering. The ABS/TC module generates the vehicle speed signal based on the outputs of the ABS wheel sensors and this signal is used to control the speed sensitive PAS. In the absence of this signal the steering system probably reduced the assistance to the minimum as a limp-home measure. I would be checking for fault codes in the ABS/TC system in case a wheel sensor has gone intermittent once the system is holding fluid again.

Kevin

[pankoboy]

hey kevin, thanks for your reply. The pipe looks as though its been rubbing on something, but dont know what! do you know if you can buy just the rubber bits?! I have a friend whos breaking a 6cyl so can get a hold of the full thing which is why i pulled the whole car to bits to get the pipe out!!! but my what a job!

As with the other issues, thinking back at one point just the tc light came on and i switched off and on again, so maybe a sensor has gone faulty.

back to the pump issue, just before the thing blew up, it was making a lot of noise on the locks, would that be the pump or
something more serious on the rack end?! thanks again, a few photos of my day for you to laugh at

what a mess!



better make some space!



The problem pipe



To take the full copper pipe out, off comes the bumper :s



and the joy of putting it back together again on monday looms like the bad weather over head.

[Kevin Wood]

Noise on full lock would have been the pump, most likely. Maybe it had leaked to the point where it was sucking air or maybe, as speculated, the relief valve wasn't doing its' job. I'd get a 2nd hand pump and pipe section and refit if it were me.

Kevin

[omega18]

Hi, This is exactly what happened on my car, I know what you have been through to get the pipe out!  
What happened to me was, that the flexible pipe clipped to the bulkhead/metal work on the nearside adjacent to the a/c compressor but the clip had broken away and the pipe moved and ended up rubbing against the a/c compressor pulley.
This wore a groove into the pipe exactly the same as yours! I had the pipe repaired at a hydraulics place who fitted a compression fitting which promptly blew out under full lock (with a rather loud bang). I then managed to obtain the full pipework from a scrapper.

HTH Karl  

[pankoboy]

Its a bit of a bugger eh! Im off to the scrappy today, typically its raining, but heyho! time to get wet im just going to replace the full thing! pump n all! better safe than sorry, dont fancy doing this again!

On the bright side, I was very impressed at how easy the drive belt came off ( just a shame you have to take the intakes/rad etc off to get to it lol!)

Thanks for your help again guys! hopefully the beast will be running again by the eod!

[Marks DTM Calib]

You dont have to take the rad out......and the inlets only take 5 mins to remove.

[pankoboy]

it made life alot easier putting the new pipes in i can tell you. Wouldnt like to do it with out that extra bit of space... next time maybe lol.