Stiff Steering

[Griffinr]

The steering went a bit stiff on my S3 this morning accompanied by a squeaky groan from the top of the steering column. Its done this before occasionally. Is the column just nylon bushed at the top, I was thinking I would just take the steering wheel off and spray lube down, does that sound a reasonable solution?

Rob.

[ketvrin]

Is your bulkhead bearing in good condition and what about the two UJ's ? the top one in particular gets crudded up from wheel spray.

K

[Griffinr]

ketvrin said:

Is your bulkhead bearing in good condition and what about the two UJ's ? the top one in particular gets crudded up from wheel spray.

K

UJ's are clean and the bulkhead bearing seems OK, the noise is definately from the top of the column. If its a nylon bush it may have expanded with the damp, nylon does that apparently.

Rob.

[blues3]

My UJ's were clean and looked fine until they were taken off. The top one was ok but the other was as stiff as a stiff thing. Nothing would loosen it it either.
The other suspect would be ball joints.

[tozerman]

I,ll agree with the top uj, they can look ok but when you remove them you may find it is almost seized, that,s what I found anyway.

Cheers.....Tony..

[orange_dodo]

The upper UJ is easy to pop off the steering column and give a waggle to see if it really is stiff. You can also check the bulk head bearing and the nylon bush. Just spin the wheel round with you head in the footwell and you'll be able to hear where the noise is coming from.

[techbotics]

Which one makes a crack type sound when u move the wheel at parting type speed and degree of turning?

Cheere D S3

[phillpot]

Is this any help Rob............



All it says in the text is "lever the upper and lower bearings from outer the column".


Doesn't say but I'd guess they are nylon or some kind of hard plastic?

HTH Mike.

[Griffinr]

Thanks for the useful comments, turned out to be the bulkhead bearing completely siezed, fortunately I had a spare in the garage that is now fitted. The bearing at the top of the column is a needle roller bearing which was a bit of a surprise as I was expecting plastic.
Just got to fix the wiring fault now that I created when I took the column out.

Rob.

[tvrgit]

techbotics said:

Which one makes a crack type sound when u move the wheel at parting type speed and degree of turning?

Cheere D S3

I would say that is more likely to be the bulkhead bearing, if the column can move slightly. It could still be the upper UJ though, if that's partly siezed, you can get very similar symptoms.