Power Steering Woes…..

The more observant amongst you would have noticed the “drive protection” under the Perentie in my last post.

As the oil leak, which was coming from the back of the engine (rear seal I suspect) was manageable, I decided to tackle the Power Steering leak as a priority. Fluid was not only leaking from under the pump on the left side of the engine but running along the steering damper and spreading all over the place.

I called into see Darren at our local garage in Milford on Sea – Milford Motors.

I got to know Darren a year or so ago when he had a Leyland Mini for sale – I didn’t buy it in the end. Since then Darren has worked on all of my cars and done the MOT’s for me. I am sure that he will not mind me referring to Milford Motors as an “Old School Garage”, great service, practical and knowledgable staff and reasonable rates; who could ask for more!

The Perentie was booked in later in the week, I was hoping that it was a simple case of a loose connection, rather than the pump itself.

Well the car was dropped off and after a couple of hours the dreaded phone call came……….The banjo bolt under the pump had required a long handed wrench to free it as it had been forced into the bracket under the pump in the past. Whoever did the previous job did not have the correct size Banjo and packed one that was too long with extra copper washers and used force to tighten it up. This was never going to be a long term solution.

In an ideal world you would just order the right part and all would be sorted. But this is s Perentie, no part number, so no off of the shelf solution, at least for an unusual part such as this.

Fortunately, Darren knew someone locally who used to own an engineering company and who still made parts in his garage………So a day later all was sorted, a new re-machined Banjo and a new thread re-cut into the pump bracket, which also could not be sourced easily. Apparently the bracket was originally a gas fitting because of the thread used; anyway, it all works now.

The guys also added some leak fix additive to the oil which has not fixed the leak, but stemmed the flow for now.

Darrens opinion mirrored mine, inasmuch as the rear oil seal is probably as fault and which we all involves splitting the engine from the gearbox to fix.

I had noticed that the transmission was a little noisy, with the noise clearing when the clutch was depressed, so maybe some wear on the layshaft. So I have decided to park this one for a while and will plan to get the gearbox re-built and the clutch replaced at the same time as we do the seal.

At least then I will be more comfortable on our trip knowing that these major components have been replaced/refurbished.