For sale - Power Steering not included

Dilbert75

Colleague in work is trying to sell her 98 Fiesta 1.3. Very good condition, only 55k miles or thereabouts, only 2 owners (I think), NCT, etc. Would seem to be a very saleable car - sold an older version of the same car quite easily six months ago myself - except it has no power steering.

Unassisted steering would seem to be the leprosy of the car world. So I guess she has two choices - let it go for ridiculous money or see about getting power steering retro-fitted.

So that's my question - is it feasible to get a crash-damaged Fiesta, pull out the powersteering rack and fit it to the unassisted Fiesta? Or is that a little bit simplistic?

Seth Brundle

Was PS an option on this model fiesta? Try the Treanors or breakers in Kilcock foor a rack.
Is she nice looking or why are you doing this work for her?

Dilbert75

kbannon wrote:

Was PS an option on this model fiesta?

I'm not 100% sure about the 1.3 but it was on my wife's 1.25. I'd have thought the same rack might fit both.

Is she nice looking or why are you doing this work for her?

Funny man:rolleyes: Half thinking of buying it myself and selling it on if the ps can be retrofitted, for what its worth.

junkyard

It will cost between 2 and 3 hundred euros for the kit from another Fiesta and you have to change the bottom suspension arms too plus the cost of getting it changed over, probably something in the region of 500 euros for the whole job including tracking. Tbh its probably your only chance of selling the car. I have a 1996 1.3 Fiesta and I can't get 1200euros for it without powersteering.

zilog_jones

AFAIK power steering was an option on the 1.3 LX at the time (which is what I also have - but mine has PS *and* a sunroof too ). So I assume it's possible to change between the two, but how much would have to be changed? The whole steering column and rack and stuff? Would the whole fanbelt system be different?

dogz

speaking from experience having done this very conversion i can say the following things are required:

a new pas rack, howver these are the same as the mk3, mk4 mk5 and ka, the fiesta si's all had them and are cheap in the uk so its all good (i fitted a sport ka rack to mine )

the oil cooler that sits in front of the rad

the power steering pump and alternator and it must be off a hcs engine the zetec mount is completely different as i discovered

a new crank pully its a double pully and the alternator and water pump use their current belts in their current config, the pas pump is driven from a seperate belt off the outer crank pully

and finally a pas steering column again the same options as the rack will do, its a shorter rack and has a differnet uj than the old rack

NOTHING TO DO WITH SUSPENSION OR LOWER ARMS NEEDS CHANGING!!

as for costs and time its about 2 hours work start to finish (i did it myself) and the racks start at about 20 stg (mine was 40) the pump and bracket (20 ish) oil cooler (dunno costs it was just included with my rack along with the pipes and resivoir) so for 60 euro it can be quite easily done

So to recap the parts needed are:
rack, column, oil cooler, resivoir, pump, pully, alternator bracket and piping

Dilbert75

Thanks for the replies guys.

unkel

Sold mrs unkel's '99 Fiesta 1.3 LX a few months ago and it was gone within days for decent money. Now it did have power steering, leccy windows and a sunroof

Dilbert75 wrote:

Unassisted steering would seem to be the leprosy of the car world. So I guess she has two choices - let it go for ridiculous money

Is it really that bad? What's her asking price? Shouldn't be that hard to shift for €2.3k-€2.5k

'98 was a bit of a turning point. The vast majority of superminis did not have power steering before that and we all (male and female) seemed to cope grand without it

Dilbert75

The first two questions everyone has asked are: "has it five doors?" and "has it power steering?". With negative replies to both questions, they've got no further. Credit is so cheap these days that even young wans starting off have enough money to buy 00 upwards, which normally have PAS.

Funnily enough the girl selling it is only a wee slip of a thing and she coped fine with it, even having come from a car with PAS. Her replacement car has it of course and she's having difficulty coming to terms with that!:rolleyes:

dogz

i always found fiestas without pas horrible to drive. thats why i fitted it to mine, it completely transformed the car and the ka rack i feel slightly improved its handling aswell so its all good:D

seriously though, the parts are readily available even off ebay and you can do the conversion yourself with a socket set, the only difficult bit is trying to locate a pas pump for the hcs engine, theres loads of zetec ones going but few hcs ones:(