Funky EPS - how to fix.
02-10-2016, 06:12 PM
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Funky EPS - how to fix.
Hi everyone,
I haven't signed on this account for a long time but I wanted to give an update on how to fix the relatively common EPS "jerky" steering - As always, your mileage may vary, proceed with caution, yada yada, not my fault if you kill yourself doing this fix.
I searched online and have found zero instructions on it so if someone covered this in the few years I've been absent, my apologies. This will probably work for most Honda EPS.
For this fix, I have zero pictures since I wasn't sure this would actually FIX the issue.
Primarily, with EPS problems there are four major culprits:
1) Sensor going out
2) Motor going out
3) EPS control unit failure
4) Rack/alignment issue
This will only fix #1.
My symptoms were: No EPS code. Jerky steering in one direction, not in other. With the EPS fuse disconnected, there was no difference in steering weight in one direction or the other. Oddly, when things would warm up on long drives, the steering issue would magically "heal" itself.
If you have the same symptoms, proceed with the read:
The culprit turned out to be a bad sensor - that is, the sensor was fine but the grease on the sensor had gone dry. While I can't fully explain how the sensor works, it was obvious that a plastic sleeve was supposed to be "floating" on the steering shaft. As you turn the shaft via steering input, the sensor would "drag" along and that would (i assume) induce some sort of electric field or resistance change via strain gauge(?) which would let the EPS control unit know in which direction to apply power. Because of the dried out grease, the plastic sleeve would skip along the shaft or not move at all, which resulted in the jerky input. Letting the car warm up on long drives would allow the dried grease to re-melt which "fixed" the issue.
Long story short, clean the old grease out with something - I used WD40 to melt out the old grease, filled it back up with standard grease I had lying around.
Long story:
mark EVERYTHING unless you want to spend hours realigning everything. Disconnect your battery (you will be messing with SRS stuff). Drop the two brackets inside of your car that holds your steering wheel up. Remove the shaft at the connection under the hood. Three (?) bolts hold your steering sensor into the steering rack. MARK YOUR SENSOR TO RACK. Remove. Don't remove the torx screws holding the sensor together. You should be able to access the plastic sleeve once you pull the sensor out. Take out the old grease, regrease, reinstall.
You might be able to remove old grease/reinstall new grease without pulling the sensor.
Hope this saves you a few bucks. If I have to do this fix again on a friends car, I'll take a lot of pictures and update this... If not, I hope someone who tries this will update this with pictures!
I haven't signed on this account for a long time but I wanted to give an update on how to fix the relatively common EPS "jerky" steering - As always, your mileage may vary, proceed with caution, yada yada, not my fault if you kill yourself doing this fix.
I searched online and have found zero instructions on it so if someone covered this in the few years I've been absent, my apologies. This will probably work for most Honda EPS.
For this fix, I have zero pictures since I wasn't sure this would actually FIX the issue.
Primarily, with EPS problems there are four major culprits:
1) Sensor going out
2) Motor going out
3) EPS control unit failure
4) Rack/alignment issue
This will only fix #1.
My symptoms were: No EPS code. Jerky steering in one direction, not in other. With the EPS fuse disconnected, there was no difference in steering weight in one direction or the other. Oddly, when things would warm up on long drives, the steering issue would magically "heal" itself.
If you have the same symptoms, proceed with the read:
The culprit turned out to be a bad sensor - that is, the sensor was fine but the grease on the sensor had gone dry. While I can't fully explain how the sensor works, it was obvious that a plastic sleeve was supposed to be "floating" on the steering shaft. As you turn the shaft via steering input, the sensor would "drag" along and that would (i assume) induce some sort of electric field or resistance change via strain gauge(?) which would let the EPS control unit know in which direction to apply power. Because of the dried out grease, the plastic sleeve would skip along the shaft or not move at all, which resulted in the jerky input. Letting the car warm up on long drives would allow the dried grease to re-melt which "fixed" the issue.
Long story short, clean the old grease out with something - I used WD40 to melt out the old grease, filled it back up with standard grease I had lying around.
Long story:
mark EVERYTHING unless you want to spend hours realigning everything. Disconnect your battery (you will be messing with SRS stuff). Drop the two brackets inside of your car that holds your steering wheel up. Remove the shaft at the connection under the hood. Three (?) bolts hold your steering sensor into the steering rack. MARK YOUR SENSOR TO RACK. Remove. Don't remove the torx screws holding the sensor together. You should be able to access the plastic sleeve once you pull the sensor out. Take out the old grease, regrease, reinstall.
You might be able to remove old grease/reinstall new grease without pulling the sensor.
Hope this saves you a few bucks. If I have to do this fix again on a friends car, I'll take a lot of pictures and update this... If not, I hope someone who tries this will update this with pictures!
02-11-2016, 03:49 AM
#2
My light is on and haven't fixed it yet but is there a way to figure out what is the problem maybe by connecting to some kind of reader like what the ecu would show if throwing a code?
02-11-2016, 07:03 PM
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https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/885...ower-steering/
Dont jump the wrong wires.
Jump with car off, turn car ignition to on, read.
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