Electric power steering

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Bonnewagon

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I learned something new. Yesterday the Wifey called me on her phone and said her '05 Cobalt had no power steering. The dash display showed "POWER STEERING". I told her to shut it off and I'll check it out later. Today I did and the engine started as always and the power steering worked. Huh? So I checked the FSM and it said that if the EPS computer doesn't see the voltage it wants, it shuts down. The electric PS uses a 60 amp fuse so I guess it is a power hungry component. I am thinking that since the car has mostly sat for three weeks with the schools closed, the battery ran down. The fact she sat in the car with the engine running yesterday may have given it just enough juice to satisfy the EPS computer. There were no codes stored, nor any pending. That was relief because almost every EPS code ends in "replace steering column". So I have the battery charging all day and I will see what happens.
 
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KCP

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Common behaviour with modern cars nowadays. When the voltage drops, i.e. bad battery or bad alternator they begin shutting down electronic systems like ABS, PS, ESP etc.
The 6.0 Powerstroke diesel Ford even kills his ECU when the batteries are bad at startup and the voltage cannot reach 48V inside the ECU.
 
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Streetbu

Know it all, that doesn't
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May 22, 2011
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Guys have been taking the important part out and installing them on other cars to give them power steering. If you dig around the 'net you can see how to do it.
 
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Bonnewagon

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Are you saying that the electrics can be retrofitted to a regular steering column? Or the whole thing needs to be swapped?
 

Streetbu

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Bonnewagon

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That is awesome! Thanks for those links. It looks like this would work best with formerly manual steering. I remember trying to convert my Sunfire to manual but nothing was available.
 
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Bonnewagon

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So I charged it up for two days. Works fine.
 
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