pili44 Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Does anyone know if you can drive a car without hydraulic steering wheel fluid?My 1993 Defender leaked most of steering fluid. Can i still drive it for some miles? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deep Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 You wouldn't want to run the pump with no fluid. It's spinning fast and needs lubrication. At the very least, you'd have to disconnect the drive belt. Is that even possible on your vehicle? With nothing pumping, the steering box could possibly be okay for a little while, if there is fluid in the system (it will barely leak with no pump!). I ran an old Wolseley 6/110 for many months like that with no damage done but can't vouch for the Defender box. I'd think of it more as a get-home solution but others may shed more light. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejparrott Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 The pump won't last long without fluid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
western Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 your arms won't last long with no power steering, a few years ago my PAS Pump blew it's front bearing, I was 3 miles from home, had aching arms for ages after driving it back home, worse than a full manual steering set up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Smith Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Agree with western. My old 110 had manual steering, and the steering really wasn't that heavy at all apart from getting in and out of parking spaces. The one I have now on the other hand has PAS and when the bolts holding the bracket to the engine failed recently it felt as if the steering had seized solid! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlosbeldia Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 On july during a "rally" my car broke the inferior seal. We had no option but to drive it. As it's a TD5, we couldn't take out the belt, so had to drive it during 100 miles without a single drop of hydraulic. Nothing happened. We exchanged the inferior seal for a washer and have been perfect since. My mechanic (was my copilot) told me there is no problem at all with running them that way. It's supposed the pump always have a small security quantity blocked by an internal valve that goes on as soon as the pressure drops. I don't know if this is true but the pump is perfect.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejparrott Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 possibly on a TD5, I don't know much about them. Not true of a 200 though. I had one running closed loop as an idler in my Series 3...that died Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlosbeldia Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 We lost all of it right here. We were in the middle of nowhere, so have to kept going.... The next day the thing got worse... we got stucked and force the steering box a little (26 hours in the same spot, no rescue cars or tractors to help us out): They were really looooong 100 miles, most of them in deep mud... maybe that's why the pump didn't break, I don't know... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigelw Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 Where is it leaking from? I assume you are just looking to buy time until a good S/H box turns up or cash is available for a new one? There are cheap enough seal kits around and I did re-seal one and with use of a speedi-sleeve I got over the pitted shaft that was causing the seals failure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlosbeldia Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 No, mine is not leaking a drop since the inferior seal (the one that is made in teflon) was replaced for a steel washer. The complete history is that the bar that comes in the front of the car, under the bumper, had a really bad hit during a NAS rescue with the terrain and was bended until the steering drop arm, forcing the box with any turn... Only 2 days before this, the box was completly resealed with an OEM kit that came from Paddocks. It's not the first Defender box in here that have had to take this kind of "inconvinience", all of them have came out with no problems during years.... c'mon, these are Land Rover steering boxes, not Toyota ones... seriously. This Toyota had a little problem with water in the steering system and this was the result: New steering box... in that "rally" (it's our heaviest route here in Colombia, 1400 km of only mud and water), the Defender were called heroes, believe it or not, we were the saviors of the Toyotas al the time... they were failing with axle breaks, diff explosions, brake "dissapearance" and all kind of electric and electronic gizmos... this was so known in all the country, that no Toyota person here dares now to say nothing about Land Rover reliability... this was the spot were that Toyota lose his box. It's worth to know that the 300 in this photo was the best of the bunch... We also learn the worst thing to have in such a route is a big powerful engine and lockers.... it's like having an anchor, jejeje... the only Defender that was in as many troubles as the Toyotas was the NAS... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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