[paulgato]

Kingsway,

I was doing some reading on the subject last night and I came to the conclusion that removing the power steering from the Golf Mk4 is bad idea, unless you need to replace the steering rack anyway, in which case if you can replace it with a manual steering rack with lower gearing then that would be worth doing. VW don't do a manual steering rack for the Mk4 as far as I know but it MIGHT be possible to use a steering rack from a Mk3, although that may be just a rumour.

(By the way, what I mean by 'removing the power steering' is looping the lines for the P/S rack (to ensure continued lubrication but to reduce resistance) and either removing the P/S pump altogether, or else looping the lines from that as well. This is what some people have been doing on various cars.)

The reason why I think it's a bad idea is twofold:

Firstly, even with the pump, etc. taken out of the 'loop', and with the rack's hydraulic connections connected together, there will still be added resistance from the piston in the rack having to push the fluid around the pipes and through the valve. (I read a post from some one who had done this on a later Golf and he said he was going to put it all back how it was because he didn't like it.)

The second reason is that without the P/S pump assist, there will be considerably more strain on the rack/pinion connection point. Because of the higher gearing - and because of the additional resistance caused by the piston pushing the fluid around - there will be more strain at this point of contact than with a lower geared manual rack, ...UNLESS the strain is being taken up by the P/S pump. This rack/pinion area is a common point of wear and when it does wear it creates play in the steering, which is horrible in any degree whatsoever (causes steering wander) and illegal beyond a certain point. (Will fail MoT test.) Changing a steering rack is not easy or quick or cheap.

So, that's my conclusion. Just 'taking the belt off' is a bad idea and it has been dropped from my list of possible mods.

The only possible scenario in which it might be a good idea is if you have a worn seal in the rack, and you're losing fluid from there. As a temporary measure (might last a long time - who knows?) you could loop the pipes from the rack but connect them to a non-pressuried reservoir, so you can monitor leakage and top up if required. That would cost almost nothing and would probably stop the leak for a while as there would be no significant pressure in the system any more. You'd still have the risk of accelerated wear on the rack/pinion point but if the rack is shot anyway you'd have nothing to lose.

However, fitting an electric P/S pump would have none of these disadvantages and should save some fuel, especially if I get around to 'deleting' my alternator and getting most of my car's electrical power from the grid (storing enough for average daily driving in a deep-discharge battery in the car's spare wheel well.) But I'll leave the P/S mod until I've done the alternator delete mod.