Hello,

Can anyone shed any light on whether my beloved Felicia is now a scrapper. Power steering became intermittent this morning and then with no warning sprayed a fine mist of hot power steering oil over my feet and trousers in the drivers footwell. Ouch !! Fortunately I was at a standstill in idle and was able to eject in a hurry.

AA guy says it looks like a seal has gone. I am guessing this is expensive as it may have damaged steering rack, may need a new pump etc etc.

Can you reroute oil into a closed loop and run it without power steering ? That really is a longshot.

Anyone ?

Ian

If it is a scrapper I therefore have a 1.3 Felicia, dark green, 2000 V, for sale as a scrapper, which is great apart from aforementioned problem. Recent new exhaust plus a few other new bits and pieces with 4 months M.O.T.

I don't think the steering rack will have gone.

If it's just the PAS the car should be drivable without the PAS, you'll just have to drain the PAS fluid.

Most felly parts are cheap and they are easy to fix.

You also need to be a freedom member to sell.

What area are you in BTW?

you've probably just split a hose or a union is loose

ISTR that disabling the PAS as you suggest is an MOT failure. As Tom says, it's probably a hose or union needs replacing, not the rack.

Even if it was the rack, if you don't mind a bit of DIY a replacement is probably economic if the shell;s in good nick.

new rack will be about £400. i'm looking for one at the mow as i have managed to feck mine to.

AFAIK PAS failure isn't an MOT fail

£400 for a new rack? Thats as much as some Felicias if you browse Auto Trader.

If the car runs and steers ok then the steering rack should be OK shouldn't it?

New, as in "new new"?; I had in mind a re-conditioned unit!

i wouldn't pay more that £40 for one out of a scrappy

I wonder if someone with a knackered power steering rack could get away with putting in a manual one and removing all the power steering components. There's a new manual one on ebay from Jorily for £110 delivered

Edited 22 August, 200817 yr by anewman

yeah you can but you need to swap over the non-power steering track rod ends too because they have a different thread pitch

Got news that new stuff on steering rack required (bush I think) plus seal and quoting £400 approx. Does this sound right? Have not a clue myself how big job is.

Sounds very heavy price for just a seal and a bush (but I know nothing about power steering). I can't imagine a seal and a bush on their own would cost more than £10 in parts alone. Given the entire rack itself should be £400 for parts i'd definitely be getting a few more quotes.

£400 for a rebuild sounds too much; as noted you can get a new rack for that, and I'd expect about half that for an exchange unit. Check your Yellow Pages under "Gear Box Mfrs & Repairers".

£400.... you could get a whole felicia for that