I've been having a trouble on my power steering. I cleaned all the connectors and stuff, but it still on and off.

When I was cleaning all the connectors, I noticed the wire on positive terminal is damaged. The wire was probably hitting/grinding the belt cause it was kinda lose. Do you think this is the cause of failure power steering? If so, can I buy the wire on positive terminal and replace it? And what does the name of that wire?

 

help me out!

 

First of all that wire should not be able to move anywhere near far enough to touch the belt from where it is at. If you are having problems with your power steering and have found a damaged wire in the system then it would make sense to try to repair/replace it. I'm not sure how easy it is to find a replacement (if memory serves me correctly it is not part of the short cord harness) so you may want to cut a section out and solder in a new piece and seal it up. Then you want to make sure it is very secure so it can't move at all.

Having said that, it doesn't look damaged enough to stop current flow, but it could be or if it is touching things and shorting out that would obviously cause problems as well. Also the power steering system is fairly finicky so maybe a cut like this could cause problems.

Does the wire look like it is ground down/shiny/cut? It doesn't look like it is melted right?

 

Thanks for replying. The wire is cut, well some part of it. The only reason it was hitting the the belt because I didn't tighten battery clamp enough. I'll try to cut a piece and seal it. One thing I noticed, when I lose power steering, I move around the wire/cable that's damaged then start the car, sometimes the power steering will come on. Do you know exact name of that wire/cable so I can look it up online or call the junkyard if they have it.

 

I could be wrong but it doesn't appear in the power steering diagram, so it is possible it is part of the main harness, and if it is, you will probably have to patch it rather than replace it.

 

hey ya'll
i need to restart this because i need some help. I dug into my wifes car about 1 1/2 years ago. Power steering stopped working. SO I replaced the short wire harness. Same prob. I then Soldered the wires. Same prob. Tested wires and they're getting voltage, and the smaller wires ohm out fine. So i know everything is getting to rack like it should. SO a month ago, decide to replace rack, starter, plugs, coil packs, wires, and oil all in one shot. Once I was done, i started the car no ps, no horn, no volume control, no cruise. I reset the dsc, left to right on the steering wheel. (also did right to left) don't know if that helped any. Any ideas where I goobered? I know the ps doesn't work, im gonna break down and take it to mazda stealership and bend over. But I need to get the rest of the steering wheel stuff working. Please help

 

hi, i've got no power steering. been reading many pages on this thread. took the car to my mechanic and he said there is no voltage showing on the two thick wires. he wanted me to ask.....

what are the two wires for specifically? (the red and the black with the stripe)
when do they show voltage? (when the key is turned on, when the car is running?)

i told him to solder the 3 smaller wires first to see what happens. if that doesn't cure it, should i have him solder the 2 thick wires also?

he also had a code b1342 come up.

he had some concern soldering the wires in case that wasn't the problem. do i need to worry about that? it seems that soldering the wires is a good preventative measure anyway, even if it's not the culprit. or, should i replace the entire harness instead of soldering the wires?

any advice is appreciated, thank you.

 

please help!

showing no voltage reading on the two thick wires on the power steering connector, please advise

when should there be a voltage reading on the two wires?

what should the voltage reading be?

where does the power come from?

mechanic soldered the 3 torque sensor wires, but no change in the power steering, still not working.

 

did u check the PS fuse closer to battery terminal?

 

yes, checked the fuse its ok

mechanic found that the thick wires show voltage only when the steering wheel is turned to the left or the right.

i have ordered a new wiring harness and will report if that fixes the problem.

 

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looks like you figured it out, but just for the hell of it ill explain what I know of how the ps system functions. The two thick wires you were asking about supply power to the brushed motor. The only time you will see voltage is when the wheel is being turned in either direction. Turn the wheel left should show +12v on your red and ground on your black. Turning the wheel to the right, the polarity is reversed. So you should see a +12v on the black wire and ground on red. The three smaller wires go to the torque sensor. The torque sensor is part of the equation that determines the polarity of the wires and how much power is sent to them. The other part is the pscm (power steering control module). The pscm uses the torque sensor to measure resistance between the thee leads. Which for simplicity we can just say left ground and right. The further you turn the wheel in either direction the higher the resistance. The pscm then uses that info to send power to the two thick cables. Anyone feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Now with that being said!....
how far has anyone gone into figuring out what their problem was/is? I started having all the tell-tail issues a while ago. Replaced harness, was fine for a year, then started acting up again. So instead of buying another harness. I reran the torque sensor wires and power wires and put connectors on them that are housed in the front bumper area where the stock intake tube would be. Worked great for another your and a half, but now I have this pwrsistant annoyance. Everything works great for 3-4 months, then I start having the wheel jutter only when turning to the left. If I take apart the system. DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, then put it back together. I'm good for another 4 months. Lol now of course ive folled the fsm as far as i possibly could. performing every procedure that didnt require the use of thier holy grail wsd tool. My profession is in electronics, so ive gone as far ad opening up my pscm, checking for faulty components on the board. Pscm is fine, torque sensor is exactly wut fsm wants. My thought is it has to do with the the stators or commutators on the motor. Anybody else dove this far into it?

sorry for the life story post!

 

thank you star for the reply!

my harness has not come in yet (im in kauai, takes a bit longer to get stuff)

i will report my results,

 

starhel1

I don't think anyone has really looked that much into it. I'm personally about at the point of just buying a new rack and being done with it. I'm pretty sure my torque sensor is bad.

 

Yeah...thats wut I was afraid of...i would've already purchased a new rack & pinion. If i didn't just dump $9k on a new engine. Plus this whole doing nothing fix has really gotten to me. I MUST KNOW WHAT IS WRONG!!!!

lol anyways...i guess for now, I'm on my own. Last time i dismantled it i took a few pics. I'll post them shortly.

 

$9,000 on an engine? Let me guess, you paid a dealer? Mazmart sells them for around $3,800. I can't see labor costing you $5k.

 

Rotary Resurrection charges like $1600 for a rebuild. $9k better include a turbo kit or something... damn, that's almost enough for a 20b swap....

 

yeah...thank the good ol' thiefs at tripoint. Received a quote of about 2k and an eta of one week. 3 1/2 weeks later I finally get it back to find out engine mounts were hand tightened...belts were over tightened( actually caused the idle pulley to seize up and get obliterated) paid $600 for a clutch that made noise similar to (i think) how a dying donkey would sound every time u started to move from a dead stop, but the best part...oh did I forget to mention the rust that coated everything in my engine bay, that was not there before I brought it to them. And the finale, the Tech that worked on my car. Which I had expressed concerns about to the owner. My concerns being that he may be going through some personal problems that are affecting his quality of work. Was fired a week after I received my car back. For THE EXACT REASONS I EXPRESSED TO THE OWNER! Of course he was willing to stand behind his work, as long as I as willing to pay him to stand behind his work....

...yeah stil irritates me thinking about it. Oh! If anyone is looking for a ACT performance street sprung clutch lmk...it was on my car for about 3 weeks. Its yours for $60.

 

new harness installed from mazmart

still no PS

so i went to the pub and downed a couple IPA's,

still no PS !!!!

what should I do next??

what is code b1342?

 

$9k!!! Damn, you should have gone east to Duarte at Lucky 7 Racing. I paid $4,100 which includes the 45 miles towing from Van Nuys and parts I didn't want replaced(new plugs and coils, coolant reservior, coolant hoses, and an air filter) that I got charged by dealer price.

 

4k??? Ouch

 

yeah i regret it...i was just gonna rebuild the engine myself. actually was in the process of craining the engine out & was tired of family bitching at me to take it to a mechanic, so i caved and said ok....

 

DTC B1342 EPS control module
DETECTION
CONDITION • The on-board diagnostic function detects control module malfunction.
POSSIBLE CAUSE
• Open or short to ground circuit in wiring harness between EPS control module
terminal 1A and battery positive terminal.
• Open or short circuit in wiring harness between the following EPS control
module terminals and EPS motor terminals:
! EPS control module terminal 4AEPS motor terminal A
! EPS control module terminal 4BEPS motor terminal B
• Open circuit in wiring harness between EPS control module terminal 1B and
battery negative terminal
• EPS control module malfunction
• EPS motor malfunction
• EPS 60 A fuse malfunction
• Noise filter malfunction
• Poor connection of each connector

Bike, since you just received a new harness I kinda doubt it is going to be a short....Its probably your EPSCM, but as a last ditch effort. You can try bypassing the noise filter to see if that is the problem. Both are located in the box that houses your ECU. They are underneath the ECU I'll try and take some pics to help you out, but im fairly confident you may have a bad EPSCM. Which is gonna require a trip to the dealer to program a new one

 

as our car ages, there will be more and more power steering failure, and there is nothing we can do about it, the A/B revision of the rack suck major *****, D is much better (newest one)

 

I have zero power steering. My steering wheel STICKS and feels like it's seizing. Brought it to the dealer and they said it is wires grounding out. I replaced the steering harness and NOTHING. My steering wheel has been locking when first started until it runs for 10-20 mins then frees up. It's now sticking while I'm driving. I'm about to drive it off a cliff. Cleaned all connectors. I'm on my last nerve with this thing.

Anyone know what else I can try?????

 

buy a new rack ?



mind u smart one, the first RX8 is already OVER 10 years old. what makes u think stuff on it will not fail ?