Brain teaser for anyone willing to read a really long post

[jimcarp 10]

Hi all, please help.

Have looked for hours on here but with no real joy. Having problems with the pressure relief valve sticking down in my vr power steering pump. Have stripped flushed system a dozen times myself. Tried three different pumps. One that worked fine until removing old engine. One I have no history with and one reconditioned one. Have taken my time bleeding including taking weight off front, turning both wheels and pump by hand for hours on some occasions. Pump seems to work and sounds OK but as soon as you drop the front end back on the floor it stops and pressure relief gets stuck down. Strip the pump and all seems perfect even to the point where I can't make it stick myself so thinking hydrolic lock of sorts. Spoken to lots of people and they all said admit defeat and let a garage sort it. The garage have had it a month now and despite me saying that I doubt its the pump it must be a problem with the rack, they tried two more pumps before putting a new rack on. Same problem although at some point they tell me they had it working for an hour or so before stopping again. They have tried all the lines and they are all fine. My son wasn't even conceived when I started rebuilding my vr and he's one now. Really want my car back on the road but never thought a power steering problem would be my downfall. Oh yeah have replaced belt and tensioner is fine. Any feedback would be brilliant, sorry for wasting so much of your lives in reading this. All the best, Jim

[Gti_Jamo 10]

Can only really be the rack now that the pump has been ruled out unfortunately. Some sort of blockage inside it causing a pressure build up maybe.

[Jim Bowen 1]

Whatabout the cooling pipe that sticks through the rad mount. Is that OK? Corroded or got squashed when changing engine?

[VW_OwneR_85 2]

what are your symptoms of this valve sticking down? i thought it was a non return valve, what fluid are you using?

[jimcarp 10]

Thanks for the feedback guys, sorry for late reply I have to work weekends. Gti Jamo, garage have fitted a new rack and it is still the same. Could be a dodgy rack I guess. Jim Bowen, you may be onto something you know. Metal pipe I had powder coated at same time as rad support crossmember and various other things and I know it flows fluid. However and this may be something that happened at the powder coaters or may have always been the same but on the left hand side (one that is connected to the ps Pump) on mine sits under the crossmember whereas on the right hand side is above. How critical flow on this pipe is I don't know and like I say fluid does flow through easily but deffo something I will have to check with garage. Front has been off the car some 18 months or so and as daft as it is I can't remember if it was like this before with the last engine or not. Sure I've seen pics of others and both ends of the metal pipe are positioned above the crossmember!? Vw owner 85 lack of noise from the pump basically, front of car off the ground you get noise from the pump at full lock as normal, front down no more pump noise and every time I took pump off the pressure relief valve would be 95% the way down. Pushing valve from the top the last little bit you get a little fluid spurt out and then the valve comes all the way up. On the green fluid, have double checked and hopefully this is the correct one. Can't remember what make but had all the vw criteria. Thanks for your ideas, I will get to the bottom of this