Ok, I thought that the Intermediate steering shaft was bad on the '03. then I found this page with a video INTERMEDIATE SHAFT ..look here before ask

The reason that I am now questioning my first diagnosis is that in that video, you can clearly hear the clunking the whole time while turning the wheel, but in our car, it makes no noise at all except when turning the wheel back and fourth about 1 / 16 of a turn :? No noise at all while turning, stopped, slow, or whatever....

Here is a vid I took of our car turning the wheel, my camera is crap and doesn't do sound, but you can get the idea of how far you can turn it. It DOES make a clunking sound when doing this, but while turning the wheel, there is no noise.





I also had Steph inside the car turning the wheel like in the vid. I was under the hood looking at where the intermediate steering shaft enters the rack. I found that there IS some play between the u-joint and the wheel, but there is a lot of play that seems to be comming from inside the rack :? I can see the shaft turning and also had my hands on it, but I could not see the tie rod ends moving or the wheels turning......

( FYI engine is OFF and transmission is in 1st gear to get better access to the rack )

OK, here is a pic of the top of the rack. The shaft turns, but the tires and tie rods dont move.



I checked to make sure that the bolt is tight also, but it was.


So, what do you think? Is the intermediate shaft bad? also what do you think about the shaft moving but not the tires..... bad rack ( HOPEFULLY not ) or bad inner tie rods?


ANY help would be greatly appreciated, We are looking to order the parts to fix it in the next few days.
Thanks.

The intermediate shaft generally makes a clunking noise more than once during the turn. It doesn't appear that you are turning it far enough for the strut bearings to come into play. The rack has been known to occasionally have problems, but usually is described as a groan or scraping sounds. I recall one post quite some time ago where someone had a similar issue as yours, and it turned out that a bolt or two holding the rack was loose.

Are you sure the noise is coming from the area near the intermediate shaft?

I have a similar problem, but the noise is more like a creaking noise and it is coming from the steering column. It happens when I turn the wheel only about 1/8 of a turn, like yours.

I read that the noise can be caused by a bad sperical joint in the steering column.

Well, when the wheel was being turned by Steph, the rack did not move at all. not even a little bit. I know it is not the strut bearings.

The noise does seem to be comming from up higher then I would think a noise from the intermediate steering shaft would be. :? Looks like it is time for a search on this sperical ( spherical? ) joint.

Is it just me or does that vid have no sound.

Ya, there was no audio there Crash.

I made sure to post that right above the vid. My camera doesn't record sound, but I figured that maybe even a vid without sound might help people understand what I am talking about.

This link will show the steering column assembly. You could try disconnecting or removing the steering shaft and see if the noise continues.
Steering Column

Sweet, thanks Archon

That helps out quite a bit. Now I can actually see what could possibly be making the noise / looseness in the column.


I really hope that it doesn't turn out to be that centering sphere ( # 28 in the diagram ) that does NOT look like it is any fun to get to

If it'* not the ISS (which would still be possible if the upper u joint is the problem) I would guess that it would be in the area discussed in this TSB