hey Jeff, you might want to let Todd (flashwing) know about this! When his car purged coolant on the dyno it might have hosed his connectors, too!

This is one thing that scares the shit outta me- I'll be hauling ass and I'll loose my PS, or I'll be mid-turn and loose it. Scary stuff!

Well, fortunately, at speed it doesn't matter much since most of the assist is out by then.
Its a low speed where it really helps you out.
The scary part was that it wanted to give me too much assist at high speed right before it quit, which made it really twitchy, but only in one direction!
If you don't expect it, you can suddenly steer way too hard.

I removed the OEM overflow hose (which is 3 inches long and pointed right at the connectors) and replaced it with a 3 foot section that purges the fluid right to the ground in the middle of the air tray, so it doesn't splash on the tires.

If that is your arm in your avatar - you won't have a problem .
I'm no body builder & i had no problem steering the car when I had this problem.

At a complete stop, with 235 tires up front, it is almost impossible to turn the wheel.
I had to brace myself on the floor and use both arms and all my weight to turn the wheel enough to back out of a parking space.

LOL yeah it's my arm. It's not so much the effort required but the surprize (being caught "off guard" if you will) of suddenly loosing PC and freaking out that worries me more!

Do you reckon its the same symptoms as this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_V1vS8Ndnc

Not nearly that severe, but I suppose that is possible.
It sounds like the rack motor on that car just "took off" without the feedback from the torque sensor.
That might even be a failure of the control module.

Now Im going to Take that hose out, and buy one thats 3 feet long and stick it out of that area.

In the mean time, Im going to buy some coolant cleaner and spay on that Area.

Thx :)

My PS failed this afternoon. Turbo conversion was finished on thursday, had several days of hot weather then a cold snap today resulting in the fail light coming on (to match the CEL thats staring at me) and no PS.

Will try cleaning up the connectors and reporting on result.

Hi Rortor psycho - glad to hear your turbo is in . How about starting a thread telling us what you ended up with .

Will do.
NZ Performance Car Magazine did a photo shoot on it yesterday which was pretty cool.

What model and make of the 200 amp did you get and where did you get it please?

This thread shows up just in time,mine failed yesterday. Well, it has done it before but I just restarted it and it would work again. Yesterday it would not repair itself, yet this morning it worked up until I stoped for lunch. Now nothing I do helps, guess I have to go find those connectors.

Funny thing I notice is how many people here would rather hastle finding it themselves and doing the work then go to the dealer. I really like to company as the dealer thing is such a waste of time and energy. So I'm not so crazy afterall.

I'm smaller and older then Jeff and manevering through In and Out Burger without the PS is work.

I'll let you know what happens here.

Heh. I've given up any sort of excercise since the steering failed - I get plenty just trying to parallel park!

I may give up and bring it to the dealer. I pulled and cleaned all of the connectors and crimped them a bit tighter, yet I still get a failure after everything gets warm and I hit a bump or two.
I guess there is the possibility that the torque sensor has actually failed.

Though I know the tech that will do the work, I worry about all of the other yokels at the dealership monkeying around with a toy like mine.

mine failed last friday. I drove the car to work, parked it. Later I tried to drive the car out for lunch and it had no power steering. so instead I drove it to the local dealer and they apparently knew of a common issue in regards to the connectors. They pulled the connectors and told me they took it apart and resoldered the joints. The service manager pointed to the two connectors sitting between the radiator fans as the connectors they worked on.

Power steering has been functional since.

btw, I have never had coolant overflow.

Re-solder, huh?
I might have to try that.
Considering they are not soldered to begin with (they are crimped), solder might help out.

I'm pretty sure my failure is at the connector on the rack itself at this point, since re-seating that is what brings it back (for a while).

If you don't read this forum don't have this car.
The time between my two posts is how long it took to fix.

I have that same extra problems with dealers also Jeff.
Now that your's has failed again I'm not so confident in my fix. The only way I'll know is to wait.

Soldering on the stock connectors? I'd have to get a closer look but that usually isn't possable or probable. I doubt they are factory soldered, that would take to much work on their part. If mine fails again I'll look into it.

You're to fast for me MM. But that backs up what I thought, they are crimped. I hope mine isn't the rack connector I hate getting under cars. Also if it is the rack connector then it probably needs a new rack as the wiring will be internal and that's where my dealer phobia stops.

The Fix
 

I pulled out the sub-harness that connects the power steering rack to the connectors at the top of the radiator.http://www.mazdamaniac.com/images/mi...ss/harness.jpg
It has two connectors at each end - one for the actual power supply to the rack which is two 10AWG wires and another for the three wires from the torque sensor. http://www.mazdamaniac.com/images/mi...connectors.jpg
It also has a ground strap that attaches to the rack and the middle engine bay crossmember that mounts the battery, airbox, fusebox and PCM case.




Once the sub-harness is out, it is just a matter of removing all of the tape and split-loom cover and then separating out the torque sensor harness.
http://www.mazdamaniac.com/images/mi...s/stripped.jpg
http://www.mazdamaniac.com/images/mi...or_harness.jpg

Once that was clear, each of the three wires and pins can be pulled from the connectors by relieving the plastic clips with a micro screwdriver.
http://www.mazdamaniac.com/images/mi...onnector_1.jpg
I cut off all of the wire, removed the insulating grommets and reassembled the harness with three fresh, new wires that I soldered to the pins.
http://www.mazdamaniac.com/images/mi...rness/pins.jpg
Reassembly is the reverse of assembly.

Hint: Mazda does make a countermeasure harness for that issue. It is not a TSB so you will need the assistance of a Mazda dealer to call techline to get it.

Yes, I'm aware of that.
If you are under warranty (and can stand having a dealer man-handle your car) there is a replacement part.
If you want to buy the part directly (F151-67-SH0A which supersedes F151-67-SH0B), its about $100.

This solution took almost the same amount of time as a replacement (plus 20 minutes) and was free.

wow - great DIY MM

How did Mazda know to issue the part as "SHOB" so that they would be able to label the replacment "SHOA"???

I'm PMing you on a few min. about something else.

That does seem to hold true with a lot of Mazda parts.
They issue "revisions" mid production that move up the alphabet as if they know they are shipping a sub-standard part.

MM, so you figure your steering problems are fixed now? Find the culprit?