Power Steering Noises......

[Zebbie]

Heya all....

From being cold, i'm getting quite a bit of 'whirring' noise on startup, and have since worked out that the noise is from the power steering.....

It's rather noisy when cold, and does disappear after the car has warmed up.

(Move steering wheel, more noise, almost like you hear on some cars when you push full lock)

I have noticed that there is some fluid on the outside of the pipe leading to the steering rack (where the steering wheel rack joins) and some more leakage on the join from the resevoir.

Is this the pump failing, or is there a belt etc that needs to be replaced?

regards,

Zeb

[morlock]

Mate,

There is likely to be air in the power steering system due to the leaks. In the short term simply bleeding the power steering system will reduce or fix the noises completely.

In the long term you should fix up the leaks or if the pump is buggered then service it or get a replacement.

Good luck.

[morlock]

Oh...and to bleed the system. Take the cap off the power steering resevior and turn the car on. Move the steering from full lock to lock and look for bubbles escaping to the top of the power steering fluid. Refill as needed while doing this and do about 20 turns from left to right or until no sounds or bubbles are produced.

[Zebbie]

Thanks Morlock, i'll give it a try this morning.

[nigelswazi]

Hi mate,

Just had the exact same problems, fix the leaks first before u bleed its prolly just some loose clamps, thats the exact hoses that were lose on my, I put new hose clamps on tightened them up nicely and bled the system. Now no more leaks at all and no squeal.

[Baz]

Turning the car on and turning it from lock to lock isnt really a great way to bleed the power steering system.

The best way to do it is remove the powersteering belt and manually turn the power steering pully while the car is turned off. Do this for about 3 minutes and it will be completely bled. After that go and do some figure eights lock to lock if needed.

But make sure you fix the leak before doing this.

Cheers

[BigDatto]

Turning lock-to-lock is the way to bleed it, but first raise the front of the vehicle on stands. Doing this with tyres on the ground, vehicle stationary is a great way to kill the PS pump. Nigel is spot on check the hose clamps at the base of the reservoir, they tend to come loose on their own, it happenend to me with both skylines.

[Sambo33]

my car had a similar grinding sound problem. i just changed the fluid. problem fixed! btw, fluid that was in there was pretty dirty.

[Zebbie]

Update for people, it was air in the the system, I only needed to in put a *tiny* bit of fluid in whilst bleeding/forcing the air out.

( less than 5% of the bottle, if that )

NigelS : That's exatly what I found, loose clamps on the resevior now fixed thanks!

Thanks for all the replies - for the ammount of noise it made, very little fluid and effort to fix!

(I moved the car to a nice sandy area nearby, to reduce wear&tear, as no stands to hand... when moving the steering etc.)

Sambo33 : The fluid did look dirty - Next oil changed, will be changing the fluid too.

Fat32 : Thanks for the pm's too.