The Hunt for the Cause of Sticky Steering MORE INFO ADDED

N

nfarmer

Active member
 Worcestershire
This is a huge post so I’ll split it into a number of smaller posts

My post last July said I had fixed the sticky steering
Well having had a few days of scorching temperatures I'm now happy that my sticky sreering is FIXED.

What did I do;
step one Indy upgraded ECU software to latest version - distinct but small improvement,
step two Greased upper and lower U/J's on lower steering column - distinct but small improvement,
step three Greased upper and lower U/J's on lower steering column again and again - distinct but small improvement,
step three Had grease nipple fitted to worm gear box on steering column - definite and very noticeable improvement.

Car parked in direct sunlight for the last week or so getting very hot, up to 30 degrees showing on display.

No stiffness at all - a result thanks to all those on here who gave advice and guidance

Well I spoke too soon and by the turn of the year I wasn’t driving the car any distance because the steering had developed a ’drag’. It wasn’t as bad as before but just not pleasant. So either the car had to go, but I wasn’t happy to pass the problem on knowing it was there and while the mileage was high (now on 120K miles) I have the car sorted to my taste, or get it fixed.

I took the car in to the dealer Friday 16th January much to my surprise the dealer refused to go ahead and replace the column without checking and double checking there was no other cause. Saying they didn’t want to spend my money only to find the problem still existed. They then stated that they considered the lower steering column to be the culprit. But I told them it was replaced August 2013 so they then disconnected the lower column and there is very clear tightness in the upper column. They then changed the column and I collected the car on the 17th

Its was about 4 hours to physically swap the column and about 2 hours to do the recoding.

I had tried fruitlessly to locate a column removed from a later car that could be guaranteed to have been ‘pinned’ before removal and decided to get a new column. Spoke to Rybrook Worcester and got a price of £2347.54 inc vat. This included 20%discount on labour and 15% on parts.

The undiscounted price should have been £2,857 (which includes VAT)

THE CAR IS TRANSFORMED SUCH A PLEASURE TO DRIVE.
 
Is the grease nipple in the right place?

Well yes and no.






As you can see (I hope) the mechanic actually drilled two holes both of which were open to the interior of the worm and wheel gear box but one was too close to the steel bearing to get the grease nipple to cut its own thread and MOST IMPORTANTLY there are the bits of the alloy housing like iron filings now inside the gear box. There were traces of them on the gear wheel as well not good news. I don’t think they would damage the bearing which appears to be fully sealed.

However there was plenty of fresh clean grease on the gear wheel and a limited amount on the worm drive.



Could this be a better location



But you have to be very careful to avoid the alloy bits going into the gearbox and I don’t know how.
 
Where was I getting the ‘drag’ from

Firstly the column had been correctly ‘pinned’



After removing the pin it was difficult the rotate the column with the motor attached but both motor and column would rotate freely when separated.

I stripped the column into its parts but failed to remove the Torque Sensor from the column



You cant see the interior parts (but they were destroyed by me attempting to remove it) which consisted of some electronics and ribbon cable wrapped around the column. And I guess the pin stops the column being rotated to unravel ribbon cable.

The sealed bearing close to the gear wheel rotated freely and smoothly.



But the bearings at the steering wheel end



And in the lower column



Were rough to the feel (probably just down to the mileage) but rotated freely.

BUT both the nylon bushes at the lower end of the column were very tight and had to be tapped off with a drift. They were very reluctant to rotate.







And the column itself was rusty



Could these bushes have been my issue? I don’t know how tightly there were held in place in the car so perhaps I had solved the ‘Sticky Steering’ issue after all!

But the car is great to drive again.

Norman
 
nfarmer said:
Does anybody want to collect the bits for a play around?
Click to expand...

Agreed great write up and thank you very much. Where are you? I wouldn't mind having a look and a play. I have read that the plastic bushes and shaft obviously heat expand at different rates causing the problem. And that latter racks had a different bush. I guess material or tolerance? Can the bush be accessed easily? As i am tempted to re-manufacture a new bush??
 
Hey that's not even that far away from me really. I am busy the next few weekends but i will be in touch :thumbsup:

Thanks again for the write up. Out of interest apart from the bush being hard to remove. are they hard to get to? I am guessing the rack has to come out.
 
Extracts from TIS, it 'aint a small job, rack stays where it is and the column comes out through the cockpit! And I'm guessing but I think even though its not changed there's a good chance it will need re-coding!







 
syOnic said:
i cannot see the pictures ! anyone knows why ?
Click to expand...

Yes - it's because Photobucket stopped pictures being shown on forums like this, unless the owners of the pictures stumped up for a premium hosting service.

Chris
 
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