My sister has a 1987 Camry
She called me today and told me she was driving and her steering failed.
She said the wheel was really hard to turn or maybe even locked?
She applied the brakes and came to a stop and the steering started to work
again. This has happened two times in the last week.
I haven't looked at the car yet, I will see it this weekend.
So a little bit of history.
1) About 4 years ago her car was stolen. They jammed the ignition lock.
She got the car back. The key starts the car fine, almost any key starts
the car since the ignition cylinder lock is broken. Once the car is
started
the key can be pulled out without turning the key back to the off
position.
Also once or twice the starter engaged while the car was running. All
pointing to a broken ignition cylinder lock. I am just wondering if the
steering column lock suffered damage when the ignition lock was broken
when
the car was stolen.
2) About a year ago my sister poured, topped off her power steering fluid
with motor oil. I caught it within a week or so. I removed all the fluid
in the power steering reservoir with a turkey baster, refilled the
reservoir
and started the car, turned the steering wheel side to side a few times
with
the car running and then I removed the fluid again with the baster. I
repeated this about 10x or so until I used up a gallon of ATF.
So I am thinking I should have removed the hose drained the system and ran
the car for a few seconds with the hose disconnected. The filled it up
with
fresh ATF and flushed it again. This would have been better then what I
did.
So now wondering what is going on with her steering. At first I thought
the
steering column is locking do to the damage from the theft. However that
was 4 years ago and I would think it would have showed up before now. So
now am thinking power steering failure due to the motor oil? Pump? Rack?
Any ideas?
