325 - no p/steering on heavy acceleration??

[eltelturbo]

Im feeling the steering go very heavy when i pull away hard from stationary. the belt is tight enough, the fluid is topped up but grey coloured. does anyone know what the problem could be?

cheers,

Terry

[Brianmoooore]

Feed pipe to the steering pump kinking/collapsing under engine movement?

[eltelturbo]

just had a look and the pipes look ok

[Cook318IS]

i'd replaced the fluid anyway. When the power steering fluid goes grey it needs changing!

[eltelturbo]

whats the best way of changing the fluid? shall i just replace whats in the reservoir, wheels off the ground, left-right-left-right and repeat this 3-4 times? thats what i done last time (5 months ago)

or should i flush the whole system? the gaitors on the steering rack are soft, should they be firm?

[Brianmoooore]

Gaiters on the rack are only to keep the dirt out! If there's any fluid inside of them, then the rack is failing.
If you only change the fluid in the bottle, then you are leaving a lot of old fluid in the rack.
Ideally you disconnect the return pipe from the rack at the bottle, block the now open connection to the bottle, and flush new fluid through the rack while turning the wheel from full lock to full lock.
In practice, I just renew the fluid in the bottle three or four times to successively dilute the old fluid.