One of my cars has steering rack issues, started giving me the PS triangle. So far, it either "problem resolves" quickly or is working the next time I start it. Anyway, before it was doing that, it was making a grinding noise from the front end when I turned to the left, like it had a bad wheel bearing, but I checked that and it seemed fine. Are the steering and grinding one and the same issue? I don't read anything in other posts on the steering gear topic about any grinding noise. I have a parts car with a fully intact front end. Should I just swap out the rack, or are there other parts I should grab off the parts car?
Does the "grinding noise" only happen as you turn the wheel, or does it continue while you're rounding a curve? What I mean is, consider driving up to a long, steady curve to the left. You turn the wheel a bit to the left as you enter the curve, then you just hold the wheel there for as long as the turn goes, then you turn it back to the right coming out of the turn. Does the noise continue as you go through the turn, even though you are just holding the wheel in one spot? If so, the noise won't be the rack. It's possible to have more than one problem. When I had a bad front wheel bearing in my Gen 1, it was only ever noisy in actual driving. I was never able to feel or hear anything wrong with it by jacking the car up and checking. It had to be under real driving forces with the weight of the car on it. I ended up having to buy a ChassisEar and take it for a drive with one pickup stuck to each wheel hub, just to figure out which bearing I had to replace. (With the ChassisEar, the answer was just about instant: "Yup, it's that one!") Do you know what trouble codes you're getting from the steering ECU? It does have a way to blink codes on a light (in case you don't have Techstream), but unlike the others that blink lights on the dash, in the case of the steering ECU, you also have to bring your own light. -Chap
