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Ford Ka, weeping power steering.

Car is a '98 Ford Ka.

The power steering is losing a small amount of fluid. There's no sign of leakage & everything looks sound apart from the rack.

The nearside end of the rack is damp with fluid. On the offside there's a bolt head visible coming out of the rack at the same point as the steering column meets the and this appears to be weeping the fluid.

1) Is any sign of leakage an MOT failure or is there some tolerance for a bit of weepage?

2) I've heard you can put brake fluid in to swell the rubber seals. Is this bollocks?

3) Sooner rather than later I want to get this fixed for good. Frankly, I haven't a clue where to start looking for the leak of sorting it once I know where the problem is. How do I diagnose this, what's the likely source of the problem and solution. (I'm thinking the answer is to take the rack off and replace a seal round the piston that I assume is providing the steering power)

4) Frankly I find power steering a complete waste of time - is it possible to remove the whole lot or even just remove all the fluid and run it without?

Reply to
toad_oftoadhall
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I couldn't do without it myself. It's about the best feature of modern cars IMO, that and air conditioning.

Dave

Reply to
Morse

1.without seeing the weepage, hard to say but if its just a small weep (misting) the possibly a pass & advise would be issued. 2.i wouldnt add anything to it, you can buy an additive to add to swell seals might be worth a shot, i think Forte or STP do something similiar. 3.your best bet is wash it off with Gunk or similiar, run it and then check for leaks.
  1. it wont pass the mot if you run it with no fluid as it will be deemed in-operative & dangerous. you would miss the power steering steering if you went back to manual steering.
Reply to
kronenburgh

My dealer were tolerant.

Dunno, but sounds iffy, heh.

It's generally considered more economical to buy a reconditioned rack. Some Kas chew their racks, some go for years without needing a new one. Ours had a tiny little leak at the two year point, which never got any worse until the four and a half year point, when it wasn't really relevant any more thanks to some Muppet writing him off.

Have you tried a non-PAS Ka? They are 4.25 turns lock to lock rather than the ~3 that the PAS Ka has *and* the steering is heavy at slow speed thanks to the iron block Endura-E up front. They also have a different suspension set up: the PAS Ka is more nimble and has greater stability. Now the purists will tell you that there's less feedback, which is probably the case, but the little Ka has great steering feedback anyway. That difference in the set up makes the steering even heavier.

You could remove everything... but really, swapping for a Ka without PAS is much, much easier.

If you do this you may want to swap out the final drive, since the non-PAS Endura-E Ka has a taller final drive (23 mph / 1,000 rpm rather than 20 mph / 1,000) and feels noticeably less eager. Better fuel consumption, though.

Reply to
DervMan

i done one of these only on monday,and it was leaking from the same place as you say, fortunatly it was less than 3 years old and covered by the warranty . cost of new PAS rack is..... wait for it....£460 for the part

its not advisable to overhaul and renew internal parts, maybe go to a breakers yard for one.

Reply to
ford_technical_

Yep, modern electro magnetic PAS systems are much better. Basically nothing to leak, burst or go wrong....

Reply to
john

Ta Derv Man (and tech ford).

What kind of effort are we talking about to swap the racks? I've had hours of fun with ball joint seperators before. Can I void that leaving the track rods there and unscrewing? APrat from that is there much more effort?

What's the cost of a recon rack? Can you recommend a good source?

Reply to
toad_oftoadhall

Something over £200 all in. I've heard good reports about:

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Good luck with it!

Reply to
DervMan

Exaclty what I need. Will have a bit of a phone round as well.

Many thanks!

Reply to
toad_oftoadhall

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