Steering knock saga

[jonnyboy]

Hi guys

I thought I would post this for a bit of help and to help other diagnose similar issues in the future. My car is a 987.2 Cayman but given that the steering system is the same I thought I would post here.

I have a knock on the steering I have been trying for months now to chase down and fix.

At low speed I get a metallic feel to the steering a very faint knocking sensation

At higher speed it manifests itself as slight steering wheel shake

So far we have replaced the following items that have brought some improvement (I had a noise from I think so far 3 different sources)

Bottom arms
Track rod ends (Tie rods)
Drop links
Front dampers

Its better than it has been for a while but still not quite there.

We have isolated a clicking sund that seems to be coming from the steering rack but I want to check the universal joints on the Steering column first. We got to the bottom one OK and the securing bolt was loose on this but still no improvement on tightening it. There is a second one I believe where is that? We could also do with disconnecting the upper lower UJ to see if the click is in the rack or column. Is there a way to do this other than dropping the subframe?

Thanks in advance. Its been a bit of an ordeal with the car but hopefully will be worth it when its working properly again!

[billh1963]

Looks like steering rack problems are fairly common. Here is on thread of many on the subject:

Cayman S Steering noise help!

Here is a representative post:

Re: Steering noise help!
Check the fluid level. If it is low it could be from a high pressure bypass valve failure that routes too high pressure to the rack. This forces fluid past the rack seals. They fluid collects behind the rack dust boots.

The power steering pump meanwhile runs low on fluid and makes noise. Often, the tech tell me, this ruins the pump. The rack is ruined too and of course the line with the valve is bad as well.

There have been a few cases -- well, I can recall one -- where the owner caught this in time and topped up the fluid and replaced the bad line/valve and last I heard the power steering system was ok.

[DanielDudley]

A common cause of those symptoms is a broken belt in the tire causing an out of round on one specific point on the tire. The steering wheel moves back and forth at low speeds, and at higher speeds it turns into a shimmy.

I assume you swapped front tires from side to side as a test..

[jonnyboy]

No this is a very definite knock its occurs on wiggling the wheel at standstill

By chance I have swapped wheels on this car and the problem is the same.