Power steering...Dangerous problem

[freezer65]

My wife drives the 2002 Windstar and has had the steering mechanism lock up on her 5 or 6 times in the last 5 days while making slow, sharp turns to the left or right. Examples: Turning into parking spaces. Making turns into traffic from a stop position.
She would have to put the van in park and wiggle the steering wheel to get it to loosen up. Of course when I drive, it never happens (go figure)
I have called the ford dealership and all the mechanics I know in town. They have never heard of that.
By the way, the van does not shut off nor do the brakes lock up. The fluid reservoir is full with no leaks.
Folks, I need some help on this one.

[12Ounce]

Check the coupling between the steering column and the steering rack. It may be working loose. Has a special bolt not to be reused.

Check the steering column top to bottom for other things that may be out-of-whack.

[northern piper]

Have you had tie rod ends replaced, particularly the inner by any chance? The rack needs to be held when torquing/undoing and if not done properly the teeth on it could be knicked which could stop the rack from moving side to side.

Piper

[3doglee]

I have a 1998 Windstar 3.0 and a few times have experianced a sudden loss of power steering when I am driving slow and start to turn. I thought the engine died but it was running. The steering wheel would not turn without a lot of hard pulling in it. Just like as if the engine die, but the van would still have plenty of power. I also think the brakes seemed to be not working as well as they should have. Not sure as I was too worried about hitting another car due to not being able to turn on time to avoid them.
Also when I stopped the van and put it in netural reved up the engine and then turned the steering wheel it worked good. I also noticed that someone put what looks like regular oil in the power steering pump. I bought the van a year ago. Any suggestions
[email protected]
thanks for any help you can suggest.

[wiswind]

If unsure about the fluid in the power steering system, change it.
The correct fluid is a ATF....Mobil 1 ATF is a good one and easy to find.

I would also verify that the serpentine belt is in good shape.....it could be slipping (may or may not make a squeal when it slips).
If any oil, coolant, etc has gotten onto the belt.....replace the belt.
If there are any cracks in the belt.....grooved OR smooth side, replace the belt.
If you replace the belt yourself......look on the underside of the hood for the routing diagram for the belt.
If it is not there.....find a routing diagram online and print it out BEFORE you remove the belt.
It is easy to forget the routing once you remove the belt.
Keep in mind that the pulleys with the smooth surface get the smooth side of the belt....and the pulleys with the grooved surface get the grooved side of the belt.......so if you find yourself trying to line up grooved to smooth, or smooth to grooved....then you know you have it wrong.
Use a 15mm wrench on the rear most pulley....which is the tensioner......pull the wrench forward (clockwise on pulley) to release the tension and pull the belt off of the alternator pulley.


The other thing you might do is have the items that folks mention above checked out.

Also note that the tie rod ends and lower ball joints are "lifetime" lubricated.....and have no grease fittings.
The tie rod ends in particular are noted to become tight and then worn as they run out of lubrication.
I got MANY miles and years out of the ones on my '96 by using a grease needle....that connects to my grease gun......to pump grease into these joints.
When I had these items replaced, I had the shop use replacements with grease fittings....as can be seen in my pictures.
You can get a grease needle at AutoZone and other auto part stores.
At AutoZone, they stock the grease needle in the area that they have the grease and grease fittings, grease guns, etc.

For the brakes, beyond verification of the braking system, I found that I really improved the performance of my brakes by replacing the hoses that go from the caliper to the hard brake line on each side for my front brakes.
I have pictures posted of how to replace the front brake hoses.
I bought the Raybestos brand through RockAuto.
As you can see in the pictures.....I did not buy anything fancy....no stainless steel braded type......just the OE style.
If you look through my pictures, you can see that I tried the grooved rotors, etc.....but changing the 2 hoses last fall made the brakes perform better than they had in any time that I have owned the van since may of 1999.
For rotors and pads, I really like the Akebono Ceramic pads and the Raybestos "Advanced Technology" rotors, which are their top of the line rotor.

I also highly recommend that you bleed the brakes at each of the 4 wheels.
I found that removing the brake bleeder screw and wrapping 1 layer of teflon tape over the threads.....and reinstalling them....greatly helped to make the bleeding process easier.
I have a picture of the "one man" brake bleeder posted near the end of my pictures.
I bought it at AutoZone.....cheap and very easy to use.
You mount the bottle at a location that is higher than the bleeder screw.....and press the hose onto the bleeder screw......
Then you remove the cap on the master cylinder......open the bleeder screw slightly.....pump the brakes a couple times......close bleeder screw.....empty bottle.....top off master cylinder.....and repeat until you get clean fluid in the bottle.

[3doglee]

Hi wiswind
Thanks for the help. I have forgotten much about working on my cars since becoming older and slower. LOL
I will check out all the items you listed and work on the needed things. The one thing that got me the most is the oil in the PS unit, never heard of people putting oil in the power stearing unit. That will take some work to get that out.

Thanks 3doglee

[tomj76]

You should be able to use a flush proceedure to get the oil out.

[Andrew1941]

I ahd my 2001 quit steering and I thought the engine quit while I was in a sharp slow turn on a clover leaf merge (going from lower hwy to upper and overpass). Steering suddenly quit or got real heavy and the engine stopped. I rolled to the side of the road and it restarted and everything was fine and never happened again. I think my problem may have been the fuel safety cut out (for roll over protection) kelled the fuel pump. Maybe I was going to fast for such a sharp turn? I was doing about 50 to 60 km/hr which I thought wasn't too bad, but I was in a rush.

Interesting to read the comments because I wonder if this is more common than I thought?

[3doglee]

That just happen to my Windstar I was going along and turning to the right on a long corner at 65mph when the motor died. I had just downshifted with the overdrive control on the shifter. When I lost all power and had to coast to the side of the road.

Had just filled up to the top real high with gas a Costco and figured the gas cover was the problem. There was not room for any air to the vapor recirulation system in the gas tank. I had heard that if the gas cap is bad the computer will shut down the motor when it receives a fault. Anyway the car started after I loosened up the cap and turned over the engine a few times. Since then the engine has run good and no more problems as I leave the cap loose and just hope for the best, and will run a digonosticks test later on.

If anyone know of other problems or if this is a wrong guess to the reason my car stopped running let me know.
3DL

[tomj76]

I don't think the gas cap was the reason it shut down.

In fact, the EVAP system should detect when the gas cap is not fully sealing the tank, and case a MIL warning.

Overfilling the tank is not recommended because the liquid fuel can enter the EVAP pipes, but I don't believe the computer is programmed to shut down when this fault is detected.

[tomj76]

I don't think the gas cap was the reason it shut down.

In fact, the EVAP system should detect when the gas cap is not fully sealing the tank, and case a MIL warning.

Overfilling the tank is not recommended because the liquid fuel can enter the EVAP pipes, but I don't believe the computer is programmed to shut down when this fault is detected.

[tomj76]

I don't think the gas cap was the reason it shut down.

In fact, the EVAP system should detect when the gas cap is not fully sealing the tank, and case a MIL warning.

Overfilling the tank is not recommended because the liquid fuel can enter the EVAP pipes, but I don't believe the computer is programmed to shut down when this fault is detected.

[3doglee]

I was wondering about that, the book says the computer will stop the engine with a fault on that but with the cap being no good it should have done that a long time ago. The cap has been bad for a long time.
Guess I will have to check the whole car out when the weather gets good. Stink when you get old like and and don't want to work on the cars anymore. Plus I am not great at the new computer crud to.

Thanks for you help and replys.

3DL