purplewg

I have a 271 XE Massey and the other morning I went out started her up and turned the steering wheel and the front tires/wheels stayed straight. I shut it down, checked the hyd fluid and it was full. It was a bit cold for my area but not freezing. I let it idle for a few minutes while I went to get the manual to make sure there wasn't a separate steering reservoir. There isn't. I shut it down and rechecked the hyr fluid. I noticed I could turn the steering wheel without the engine running which isn't good. I started it back up and it worked fine.

A couple days later I had the same deal but I just let it idle for a minute or two and it started working just fine. The first day I had let it idle much longer and still no steering but it eventually did start to work.

There is a hydraulic cylinder up front by the radiator that turns a pitman arm configuration and I could see it was not working when I turned the steering wheel so either it is going bad or it wasn't getting good flow I would suspect.

Any opinions on this?

Thanks

shona13

G,Day purplewg.
It is possible that there is water in the powersteeing reservoir and it is freezing up .
also check that the power steering filter is not blocked.
See Ya hutch.

purplewg

Thanks Hutch. I finally figure out the whole hydraulic system is coupled to the power steering. When my FEL started acting up I got into the manual and found the strainer screen in the bottom was all sludge'd up from water seeping in from a cracked shifter boot. I cleaned the strainer and it worked better but had to replace the hydraulic external filter also. Massey calls it a power steering filter but it filters the whole system. My smaller 451 has warning lights as to when the screen gets plugged but then again it is newer than this 271.