Whiny/groaning noise when I turn?

[Sal329]

When I turn my wheel I get a weird whiny or groaning noise, kind of like when the belt gets bad and you can hear it. Only happens when I turn the steering wheel though.

 

[seanklsc]

hehe, is this your first Ford product ?

 

[The Rev]

same thing happens to me, not whiny though, its more of a grinding. its only on the passengers front side though, seeing that im at 114k im suspecting upper/lower control arms and all the fixings....right?

 

[jgnwi]

I noticed my 97 Mark does the same thing. Is this serious , any ideas what it could be??

 

[Markviiiedrea]

power stering noise, like sean said welcome to FORD!

 

[Sal329]

hehe, is this your first Ford product ?

Hmmm... 84 Cougar, 90 Cougar, 91 Cougar, 2000 Mustang... None of them had any noise like this.

 

[Roadboss]

Try flushing out your power steering fluid. I use a turkey baster to suck the fluid out, but you could do it other means, refill with Mercon V, turn wheel lock to lock a few times, redrain and refill again. My noise is gone.

 

[devilchild]

definitely the power steering... its done it on both of my mark viii's and my first car 86 t-bird.... roadboss might be right with the flushing

ive tried that before on my tbird with no luck.. but it might work on my mark.. ill have to give it a try

 

[The Rev]

So it sounded (on my 93) like rubber and metal that weren't being nice to each other. So I jacked the car up, took the wheel off and saw that the swaybar (is that the swaybar? i have no idea) where it runs through the rubber was all cracked and dry so I PB Blasted it (and all other rubber on metal contacts) really well and thought I had gotten it. I didn't. Its still doing it, and its starting to do it a little bit on bumps, but especially when I turn, its getting really loud and annoying to say the least. I'm going to try the mercon treatment in a few. I'll update, but here are my pics, I've never seen what this is supposed to look like, but it doesn't look too good.

PS: when my mother was turning the wheels (it was parked) so I could check it out, the power steering was overflooding, and is still overfull.

 

[Aquabrit]

Yeah, thats the sway bar and a bushing in that second pic. Looks like you are gonna need some upper arms soon, maybe lowers and other parts too, if they are all original.

 

[Sal329]

When I do my control arms I will recheck the sway bar bushings and also do the powersteering flush.

 

[The Rev]

Yeah my mechanic told me when I first bought the car that "the bushings were wiped out but i replaced em for ya" and yeah he didnt. After flushing the power steering a few times (Its still brown, i'm gonna flush it again tomorrow) it doesn't whine AS MUCH when I turn, but it still does occasionally. It's starting to make noises when I go over bumps, and its only on the passengers side. Its at 114k and I know they're all original, so whats the front end overhaul everyone talks about at 100k besides the upper and lower control arms? I'm gonna have to do it with that 600 dollar tax rebate they're talking about in may.

Oh and the ride height sensor (is that it in the first pic?) was disconnected when I looked at it today, so I slid it back onto the control arm but it still falls out, screw me.