Z3 rack swap help

[CHITTY]

Ok I bit the bullet and bought a reman. Z3 rack. I installed it over the weekend and everything went in fine. But when I first bleed the system I had a lot of air in it and and the steering seemed stiff and heavy. After letting it sit over night, I went to start it up and the power steering seemed fine until I went for a drive and it got stiff and heavy again. So Today we brought it into the shop, steering seemed normal, flushed the system again just incase, set the alignment and once again everything seemed fine. I left for work and about 5 minutes into my drive the steering got heavy again like manual steering. When I pulled into my drive I checked the fluid and it looked good checked the belt tightness and it was good. So I started it back up tried to turn the wheel and it was still stiff, until I reved the motor up to around 2000 rpm and it started to get light again.

So I'm hoping one of you that have done this can help me figure out because I am at my ropes end. The problem seems to only happen when fluid gets warm and I can sort of get it to turn easy at park if I rev the motor. If it helps, I used all of the e30 ps lines instead of the e36 pressure line that some use. I have searched all of the boards before doing the swap and know a few that have done it and not have had this problem.

I have a feeling I know what needs to be done next but want some confirmation I haven't missed anything.
Thanks in advance,
Greg

[Adrian_Visser]

All you need to do to "bleed" the power steering hydraulic system is turn the wheel lock to lock a couple times.

As for the problem you are having it sounds like your pump isn't putting out enough pressure.

What engine does your car have?

You're running ATF in there right?

That said you should check for kinked hoses first, also did you replace the fluid reservoir? It has a built in filter and who knows if there was junk in your rem-man'd rack that clogged it up or something.

If that all checks out i would suspect a problem with the rack itself. My old rack had a sort of dead spot in the center where it had no boost intermittantly, fuck me it was annoying to drive, I swapped pumps to no avail, it all went away with the s52 and z3 rack though.

[CHITTY]

Atf was used, system was flushed and we bled the system and had no air or foaming in the resevoir. Motor is M20 and the resevoir is clean. I am leaning to the pump, but it was good before and it makes no noise. I am wondering if it going out and have searched through all of the forums to find a answer. What's funny all I keep coming up with is everyone saying just delete it, which I do not want to do. And yes it's annoying to drive, especially when I was all jazzed after installing the newer rack in. What's killing me is it's perfect when the car is cold and after 5 minutes of driving it starts to get stiff and a real pain in the ass to drive. I'm going to lube the steering knuckle for the hell of it and if that doesn't work, I guess I will buy a pump, it does have 200k on it. I am still open for sugestions. Oh and the lines don't having kinks in them that I could see and if did wouldn't do it all of the time.

Thanks again

[Brandon12V]

if you did you everything as you say, it is highly likely the pump is going bad. normally they just take a shit but Ive seen plenty of symptoms like yours on VW's and audi's. always ended up being the pump. make sure you don't have the hoses mixed up going to the reserve as well.

[CHITTY]

Well I changed the ps pump and went to a e36 pressure line, checked all lines for any kinks and I still have the same problem. I guess the only thing left is to swap out the rack with another, since everything worked fine before the swap. Man this is beating me up. I should have another rack tomorrow, so we will see. The worst part is that I have the cca golden gate autocross this Sunday, so I hope i can get this figured out by then.

[CHITTY]

Update, problem is fixed. There was a small kink in the return hose under the res. Thanks to those who responded.