Steering: Testing and Inspection

General Diagnostic Table





INSPECTION

NOISE AND VIBRATION

CAUTION: Do not keep the relief valve operated over five seconds at any time or inner parts of the oil pump may be damaged due to rapid increase of fluid temperature.








NOTE:
^ Grinding noise may be heard immediately after the engine start in extremely cold condition. In this case, if the noise goes off during warm-up there is no abnormal function in the system. This is due to the fluid characteristic in extremely cold condition.
^ Oil pump makes whine or growl noise slightly due to its mechanism. Even if the noise can be heard when steering wheel is turned at stand still, there is no abnormal function in the system provided that the noise eliminates when the vehicle is running.
^ When turning the steering wheel with service brake and/or parking brake applied, the noise is generated by creaking between disc and pads. However this does not indicate abnormal function in system.
^ There may be a little vibration around the steering devices when turning steering wheel at standstill, even though the component parts are properly adjusted and have no defects.
Hydraulic systems are likely to generate this kind of vibration as well as working noise and fluid noise because of combined conditions, i.e., road surface and tire surface, engine speed and turning speed of steering wheel, fluid temperature and braking condition.
These phenomena do not indicate there are some abnormal functions in the system.

Confirm the vibration by turning the steering wheel repeatedly at various speeds from slow to rapid step by step with parking brake applied on concrete road and in D range for AT model.





MEASUREMENT OF STEERING EFFORT

INSPECTION OF CLEARANCE








This table lists various clearances that must be correctly adjusted to ensure the normal vehicle driving without interfering noise, or any other faults.