Evening all
Whilst doing ‘something’ under the front end of my Troopy the other day, I noticed a watery type drip hanging ready to drop in the vicinity of the left hand side of the radiator.
A closer inspection under illumination revealed that the power steering pump had sprung a ‘weep’.
Bugger! must get that looked at ASAP.
Today, did just that. Rang the local Power Steering techo/expert who finished off my phone diagnostic description for me as if he was looking at it and/or driving it and adding without me saying so – it’s a diesel with the pump down the bottom isn’t it.
This apparently is the situation with 1HZ motors with the power steering pump situated under the fuel pump.on the left hand side as you look out of the windscreen due to the following:
(1) because of the location they become ‘superheated’ from the engine and insufficient airflow.
(2) this additional heat factor causes the internal drive shaft seals to harden quicker than normal.
(3) the harden seal/s start to wear a groove in the pump drive shaft
(4) Pump starts to leak around seal via this groove.
So I dropped it off for the necessary repairs basically straight away as it was only 2 mins down the road from me.
After he had had a look at it, I brought to his attention that the PSFluid Reservoir on top of the motor had also been weeping a tad out of the filler area over the last 10,000kms.
He said that the reservoir had valves and filters in it and the only time it comes out the top is if there is a ‘something or other’ pressure problem.
Then he has a look at the fluid and makes the remark that it is ‘pretty dark’ and most probably been there since it left the factory.
It is a 1997 last of the 75 series model with 80,000kms on the clock and serviced at 5000kms intervals religiously.
Guess what, not one mention of checking the PSFluid reservoir on any of the service invoices, plenty of other B U L L S H I T entries as to what was checked and serviced.
Now the fixit man tells me that this is not an uncommon problem with the PSPumps on diesels located in this position, and when asked, stated that you should get around a 100,000kms before it gets to this state again.
It needs a new shaft, seals and bearings, plus the Reservoir will be checked as
well.
So! Have any others with 1HZ engines experienced this phenomenon, if so, at how many kilometres on the clock.
Regards
Ken Robinson