G'day all,
 
Been a while since i've been on these forums, hope you've all been well and still enjoying your dueces =] Anyhow, need some urgent information regarding my power steering/horn in order for me to get a rwc to sell the car. 91 SW20 GT import.
What i wanna know is whether or not changing the steering wheel in the past to an aftermarket one was the cause of the loss of power steering? I've read somewhere online after hours or searching and came across only ONE thread somewhere (not sure if it was here), that the sw20 p/s can fail due to not having some sort of brass ring or wire connected to the horn area? Something to do with the p/s sensing what position the steering wheel is in or something along those lines.  I remember that there was some sort of a copper wire that originated from the hub area of the steering column somewhere that snapped off accidentally when the steering wheel was installed and i THINK that had something to do with either the horn/ps. I dont have cruise control or airbags. Ive checked the brushes in the power steering pump, cleaned the relay, and made sure the fluids are fine.. my p/s light goes off after all the other accessories are off as well.. and the p/s only works the first 20-30 seconds of when the car is started. I can hear the pump working during those 20-30 seconds too.
I wanna know if someone can shed some light for me as to how and what part i need that relates to the connection between the p/s and the steering wheel (links to pics/how-to's etc). How can i go about fixing this without getting a new horn setup?
 
I hope someone can help with this as it doesnt seem to be a common problem from what i can see. Any help would be much appreciated.
 
Cheers

Bah...... no one?! =S

I have an aftermarket steering wheel in my car, and it seems to make no differece to the powersteering

Unfortunately, it may be related to somthing within the mechanisms itself
 

I reckon you have a fault in your power steering somewhere. In  aprevious MR2 I had the power steering cut out for no reason. Then a day later came back on. Seemed like every now and then it might just drop out. You could have a break in a curcuit somewhere, maybe even a fault in the powersteering control unit.
To find the cause without buying stuff you'll have to run a multimeter to each different component and see where the power stops.

eric - definitely aftermarket steering wheels work, but i was just wondering if i bought one without knowing that there is some sort of mechanism built in specifically for cars with p/s. the back of my steering wheel is just blank, no wires connecting to it or a brass ring or anything that ive seen on many aftermarket steering wheels.
 
track - if the problem was intermittent like what you experienced, then a multimeter check might source the problem if it was an electrical one.. but if mine was a consistent problem, then would the multimeter check also pick it up? would you know which components i should be checking.. because i think theres a few related to the p/s that im not familiar with.
 
Thanks so far guys, much appreciate your input =]

Hi,
 
You were saying that the power steering works for the first 20-30 seconds when the car starts up, so if it was related to your aftermarket steering etc....it shouldn't work at all. Since if works, it means the pump is okay but something electrical is faulting and breaking the circuit somewhere. With regards to where to start checking, I've got no idea as there are wires everywhere in these cars, making it a hard job. Start with the pump itself and watch as it gets power at start up, then you should see the power disappear after the 20-30 seconds when it starts to fail. From there trace the wires back i guess. If no power fails then it means its within the pump itself. I'd probably head to an auto elec as it's not going to be easy or maybe even toyota as it migh come up on the diagnostic if your really, really lucky but I dont think the diagnostic registers the power steering pump and all.....have to check with toyota.

only thing I can think is that a smaller steering wheel is naturally harder to turn (less distance from turning point = more torque required to turn it). Otherwise, changing steering wheels shouldn't really change anything. perhaps changing it just made it that much more obvious there was an issue though?