recently aquired my first volvo,1986 740 gle unknown mileage as the speedometer and odometer dont work.odometer shows130k.carhas a very heavy feelto the power steering and very poor return. No grease fittingsto be found. Any ideas as to what is wrong,or are the suspension and steerig parts just suffering from old age. As you know part renewal is rather costly.

 

With the car running remove the cap for the steering fluid resivior and look for good movement of the fluid in the resivior.If the fluid is moving alot then the rack might be bad.

 

Check the level and colour of the fluid. If it is dark black it may be contaminated with gasket material or worse, with metal particles. An easy and quick way to improve your steering, if the problem is due to contaminated fluid is to change the fluid. You can draw out about 500mL from the reservoir with a baster and replace with new fluid. I tried this method and the steering on my 740 has improved significantly.