Creaking sound from steering when stationary in downhill position!

I have had this sound from the steering since I bough the car. I can hear it when backing out of the garage and going from reverse to first gear while turning (weight shift in the car). Today I noticed that I could repeat it by just standing downhill and moving the steering wheel from left to right. When holding the hand against the wall behind the pedals at the same time I can feel the grinding/creaking. I can’t feel anything while driving, there is no play in the steering from what I can feel and it doesn’t seem to affect the wheel alignment.

Can anyone of you give me clue to what it might be?
I haven’t checked the steering rack yet as I can figure out how to access it, can any one tell me how to access the mounting points for the steering rack etc?

 

Found the holes in the trunk that leads to the steering rack and the bolts. I checked the torque and it seems to be fine.
I can still feel/hear the creaking while turning. Could it be that the internal of the rack is damaged in some way or is it just the bushings that are getting old and move even though I can see it?
Can the bushings be changed without removing the complete unit i.e. through the hole in the trunk?

 

I think i got slightly better as I torqued the nuts holding the steering rack ,so I think it is related to the bushings. I ordered a new set from eurospares and will try to fit them and se what happens.

 

I can always spray silicon on the bushing to se if that is the source. But I would feel better if I knew that the problem was permanently fixed with new bushings in place.

 

I will if I manage to get them into place.

 

I think you may be right. I removed the bolts and bracket holding the bushings, cleaned and re-greased them and put them back. No more sound, haven’t driven the car yet but will do so later this weekend.

 

I was not easy to get any picture from the fix, but here is how I did it.

The silicon spray did help a bit but I decided to change the bushings anyway. Ordered the them from Eurospares and did as follows.

1 Removed the carpet in the trunk to get access to the holes for the bushings.

2 Raised the front of the car and removed the front cover plate got get access from underneath the car.

3 Removed the bolts holding the bushings.

4 Removed the old bushings and put new one in. This is a bit tryicky but after fiddling about for a while I managed to get them into place. Access from both sides is neccessarry to get them correctly in to place.

5 Torqued the bolts and tested everything.

6 Put the carpet back in and the cover plate.

Over all the change too me about 1 hour to complete. No more noise

 

After driving the car for 20 Km today, the steering-feel is definitely crisper. I probably had a slight movement in the old bushing causing the noise and giving a bit vague feeling. Car feels better than ever! Well worth the hour spent