woodt3

My Ls400 has been having problems with its power steering since I bought it. First, I rebuilt the pump because it was leaking, and bled the rack, and the solenoid was clicking and everything was good for quite a while, after I had the car parked for sometime the power steering got heavy again, and I rebled the rack but it didn't really seem to help anything. The power steering is very intermittent and I had a shop look at the car and they think the rack is going bad. The car will be easy to steer sometimes and not others. Sometimes it will be easy to turn in one direction but not the other, which I've read is indicative of the rack being bad, but it never seems to be consistent. Its difficult to explain, but when the steering gets heavy, you can kind of hold the steering wheel at the spot it gets heavy, and hear a whooshing sound and then after about 10 seconds or so it seems as if the power steering kicks in, as if there was some sort of pressure build up. Any help anyone can provide would be great, I'd rather not have to replace the rack. Although for anyone reading this who has done it themselves how long did it take you?

JimsGX

Assuming you cleaned the solenoid filter before, I'd check it again. How many miles on the rack? Do you hear any noises over small bumps such as a muted clunking sound? What type of fluid are you using in the pump?

woodt3

Yeah, cleaned the solenoid filter, as you suggest I'll check again, 198K miles, no noises over bumps that I can hear. As far as fluid its ATF, but don't remember the brand/type off hand

python

iTrader: (4)

maybe a bad valve on the pump? u can also check for blockage by pulling the return line off the pump and turning the wheel left to right or right to left..the fluid should flow evenly back into the pump

woodt3

Bad valve? Do you mean the valve you have to replace if you start smoking from burning ps fluid in the intake? I changed that one, forgot to say, its been a while since I've been working on this car, and the ps was good for a while, but has recently started acting up

woodt3

Its been a while, I don't get much time work on this car, but recently I bled the rack and attempted to clean the filter, I noticed it is torn, could this be causing my problems? Can I use an inline filter?

woodt3

Any ideas anyone?