Steering issue

Icarus

Registered User
On my '94 Mark VIII, I've noticed that once in a while in long swept turns (like a long on/off ramp for the highway) that the steering 'twitches' and you can feel it in the steering wheel as a light twitching/pulsating pulling. It feels like the steering wheel is twitching/pulsing in your hand side to side slightly (maybe <1/4" either way) as you go onto on/off ramps, mainly it's been on slightly downhill ramps. It doesn't do it on curves on city streets though, and only once in a blue moon while on the ramps (about 6-7 time since I bought the car 3-4 years ago.)

I flushed out the fluid with a ton of dexIII, then refilled with synthetic Mobil 1at the end of '07 and it's not done it since. The guy that did the gears in my car took it for a drive last year and noticed that it was doing it again. He showed me it doing this.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I was going to bring the car in an alignment check and a few days before it did this a couple more times again!

One of the guys at work and I looked it over on the weekend (he's an ex-Ford tech of many years,) and the fluid that I flushed so nice and clean at the end of '07 is now getting quite black again, and it's only been 5000kms or so. He thinks this is a sign of the rack going internally and thinks I should be looking for a new rack. He doesn't think it wold be a pump problem.

Sorry for the long rant, I'm stumped to decide to replace the rack or not. I'd like to go with a Ford rack if I do, but they are almost 3x the price of aftermarket ones.

Any advice and suggestions would be great please!
Thanks
:)
 
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Changing the rack is a real pain, even once you have all the accessory parts of the drivers side of the car.

If the EVO unit is acting up it could result in your symptoms.
Disconnect the EVO sensor where the high pressure line goes into the power steering pump. Doing this will mean power steering assist is on all the time. Normally it will bleed off at some speed around 70 MPH. It's an easy test.

Cheers
Bob
 
I've read and been told the EVO can produce these symtoms, but the fluid going black again so quickly leads us to think it's the rack. I'm going to do some of the tests for the steering system and EVO from the shop manual on the weekend and see if it gives me any more clues too.
 
Any recommendations for an aftermarket rack that will last (not Cardone though, I will never use their stuff again!)?
 
The EVO sensor tested fine and the harness etc did too.
I took the car to the dealer today and I the front end guy spent all afternoon with the car (not by choice on his part!) All seems well, and the alignment is pretty well dead on what I wanted, though the tech will never want to see another Lincoln again in his life! He did a great job though :) The car feels better and now I will be comfortable taking it on the highway without killing the tires.
Thanks Ed for the recommendations on the alignment!

One of the techs there got to put a brand new engine in a Mark back years ago in a new car that was having issues. The car was so important to Ford then they didn't fix the problem at the dealer, but replaced the whole engine with the guys from head office where-ever watching, and shipped the other one back to be examined!

I also couldn't believe the number of people that came in to look at my car. I was surprised the old Lincoln would get this much attention! I even had a guy stop beside me at a red light and ask if I was selling it and that he had a couple himself, though I don't think he got my number as he hasn't called yet.
:)
 
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