WarrenW

Anyone here have a failure of the steering system, either in the rack, a U joint or some other part that would cause the wheels to stop turning at all?

Chuck S

The wheels don't turn or the steering doesn't turn. Power steering light lit on the dash? Tried the reset (takes a paperclip to jumper a couple of pins on the CAN buss)?

-- Chuck

WarrenW

The steering wheel turns, actually spins, kind of like a Playschool car's steering wheel but with a ratcheting sound.

The front wheels are splayed out with the left wheel pointing to the left and the right pointing to the right.

All of the ball joints and both tie-rod ends are connected so nothing broke there. I'm wondering if one of the U joints in the steering column broke. It was night time when it happened so I haven't been able to get a clear look at it. The car is at the tow facility and I'm going to pick it up today.

Habitforming

If both front wheels are pointing in different directions, there had to be some failure in the rack itself, which is extraordinarily uncommon. A failure between the steering wheel & rack would have both wheels pointing in the same direction.

WarrenW

As the tow truck driver was straightening the wheels to load it on the rollback he noticed the left side of the steering rod was angled down a little then it came back up as it met the ball joint end at the axle. My guess is that something broke or came loose in the steering rod, either the ball end of the rod came out of the socket or the locknut loosened up and allowed the entire rod to unscrew from the rest of the rack (pages 17-55 and 17-56 in the shop manual). I won't know til probably Sunday when I get a chance to take that side of the steering system apart.

WarrenW

Here is an update...
After jacking the car up I pulled on the steering arms on both sides and only the left side wobbled a bit. The right side was solid. I took the rack boot off this gray piece that the shop manual refers to as a "rubber stop" was out of it's designated place. It looks and feels more like plastic than rubber and it has ridges on them which at first I thought were threads. I don't know if this is what caused the steering to fail on the left side but I'm hoping someone here has either had a similar issue or has torn open their steering rack and can tell me if this is the likely cause. Here are a couple of pics I took of the piece and page 17-56 of the shop manual showing where it's supposed to go.

rubber-stop-cu by Warren Watson, on Flickr

rack_inside by Warren Watson, on Flickr

rack-end-repair-man_17-56 by Warren Watson, on Flickr

WarrenW

Bump.

Chuck S

Special tool...

cfs

WarrenW

CFS?

SheDrivesIt

Initials, I think. Chuck Fukking Somethingorother