It's leaking manky stuff from the steering relay...

as above, horrid gooey black stuff.

looks like grease. is there a seal in there, I know there's a massive spring in there....

I'd just stopped the engine leaks as well, with a jamjar. Bah

Is it a 'watch it leak and fill it up again' job or is it worth taking the bugger to bits? looks like a right arse of a job...

cheers

It should be filled with EP90. Take off the lower arm and the retaining plate. The bottom plate will come off without the thing exploding, there's an oil seal fitted to it. Refill through the top plate bolt holes.
If the relay will come out it's worth replacing the whole unit.

You can see the one half of the "split bush" at the end of the devils spring.
there are two split bushes top and bottom of the relay ,forced apart by the devils spring in the middle (as the bushes wear (similar material to railko bush material) they are pushed further apart to compensate )





If you look closely at this pic,you should be able to make out ,that the bottom split bush of the relay is in good clean order ,as is the relay shaft .
Whereas the top one has obviously suffered from lack of lubricant ,and possibly water ingress ,and the bush has a dark almost overheated look and the corresponding section of the idler shaft is rusty and pitted and thus fooked ...............

I presume that the bottom bush has been preserved by the amount of lubricant around it ,where the upper one has run dry .

Removal of two opposing bolts on the top plate and top oil up through one while the other acts as a breather to let trapped air out allows topping up ...slow job by gravity or slightly quicker if you use a syringe type arrangement

And from memory removal of either the top plate or bottom plate will result in the spring expanding ...not deadly but a pain in the arris to get back together

oxides said:

It should be filled with EP90. Take off the lower arm and the retaining plate. The bottom plate will come off without the thing exploding, there's an oil seal fitted to it. Refill through the top plate bolt holes.
If the relay will come out it's worth replacing the whole unit.

Click to expand...

Only if its a OE manufacture one .....

More than one of a lesser manufacture possibly supplied in a blue and white type box has been known to either fail completely OR twist along the relay shaft due to inferior materials used in its manufacture ....

Beware

cheers fellas, useful pics.

might try taking the bottom off v.e.r.y carefully - presumably yu can get rebuild kits fer these things with new oil seals etc in em?

fanks!

They're not too difficult to rebuild IF the bloody things will come out. I've done one with it still in the chassis and it was an interesting job - interesting in the as in Chinese saying......

If you do take it apart, please be very careful. I have seen one of these things fly apart and nearly decapitate the guy standing over it. He very nearly shat himself.

martin1512 said:

If you do take it apart, please be very careful. I have seen one of these things fly apart and nearly decapitate the guy standing over it. He very nearly shat himself.

Click to expand...

Even IF you fitted the end of the bloody spring with freshly sharpened Razor blades,
I think it unlikely that it would be likely to "decapitate" someone

Yes it is a spring under some tension BUT nothing like a compressed suspension spring .

took my spare apart cause it was very hard to turn and found the shaft was dead, cost of shaft was almost as much as a cheaper complete aftermarket unit, throw the seals and bearings into the equation and the hassle of getting it back together..... shop around and you may find one cheaper.:doh:

I put an old coffee tin underneath the relay in situ, propped up on a trolley jack and tapped the shaft down into it. There was a fair old bang when the spring released and I really wouldn't like to have had my hands in the way. It's probably easier to do it like this before removing the relay body - safer, too.