What a job Sadie's broken power steering turned out to be. No one could tell me if a second hand replacement would work. Some said the serial numbers had to match exactly, some said you only needed to match prefix and suffix. all very confusing.
Sadie said, "Please mend it soon dad, I'm turning into Arnold Schwarzenegger".
Eventually I found a firm in Tamworth who would recondition the original one for £300 and guarantee it for 2 years so that's the way I went.
It was an absolute nightmare to change. I spent an entire day curled up in the foot well trying to figure out what to undo and how to access it. Ford mechanics must have the brains of Enestine and the body of Quasimodo
One of the most scary parts was removing the drivers airbag. Now I know what it feels like to do bomb disposal.
Then once I had it all undone and disconnected, I had to extract a very large component through an impossibly small opening. Now I know what it feels like to be a midwife.
This pic shows the car with everything removed. It this point I was convinced it would never work again.
| Click to see full-size image. |
This is several hours later with the new electric power steering column back in place. The most amazing part was, we started it up and it worked.
| Click to see full-size image. |
Not everything went smoothly. I forgot to re connect the horn wire which meant I had to remove the drivers air bag for a second time.
Altogether though, the entire job cost £340 instead of £1170, so it was worthwhile imo.
It got me thinking though. Would we rather have the cars of today that are ultra-reliable but a Main Agent fix when they go wrong, or the older, less reliable ones that are mostly repairable in the field?
Author