Steering rack replacement

[Seaway]

Because my issues seem to never end, I am now having trouble with my steering rack. I noticed this morning that the boot on the driver side is torn and the fluid is a bit low. So it's obviously leaking. Also, the steering wheel is not always returning. Feels as if it catches after a hard turn. 

I have added ATF to fill the steering reservoir with no change to the feel. 

I have read up on replacing the rack and it sounds like a giant pain, but doable. I do have a mechanic friend with a lift who may be able to do it for me. 

What rack should I get? Any experience with Rack Doctor? Any idea what the time to do the job on a lift should be? At some point in the near future I will have replaced everything wear item in the car, so I may as well go ahead replace the rack too...

[andyb5]

I just did the job on my wagon. It wasn't too bad - all told it took me around 4 hours the first time and 2.5 hours the second time. I bought my reman'd unit from rack doctor, and everything so far has been good. One thing to note is they don't include any of the hardware needed to bolt the rack down, so you'll need to either transfer the studs from your current rack over or be prepared with new hardware. I recommend new hardware because the OEM studs did not fit into my reman'd rack so I had to use bolts instead. 

Id suggest buying a new u-joint at the same time. Use an air hammer to drive the u-joint up and off the rack. When you go to reinstall the new one put some grease on the splines and it'll slide on by hand. 

Make sure you are very gentle with the fittings on the feed and return lines. The fittings on the line are very soft aluminum and easy to damage the threads on the steel threads in the PS rack. Make sure you line them up and thread the fittings in by hand as far as you can before using a line wrench. Keep one hand on the line to make sure it is centered as your use the other to turn the fitting.

I can't emphasize this enough - be gentle with those fittings!!  Some hack who worked on my car prior to my owning it cross-threaded the return feed fitting. That cost me a new return line and a second  install of my replacement rack. 

[Seaway]

9 hours ago, andyb5 said:

I just did the job on my wagon. It wasn't too bad - all told it took me around 4 hours the first time and 2.5 hours the second time. I bought my reman'd unit from rack doctor, and everything so far has been good. One thing to note is they don't include any of the hardware needed to bolt the rack down, so you'll need to either transfer the studs from your current rack over or be prepared with new hardware. I recommend new hardware because the OEM studs did not fit into my reman'd rack so I had to use bolts instead. 

Id suggest buying a new u-joint at the same time. Use an air hammer to drive the u-joint up and off the rack. When you go to reinstall the new one put some grease on the splines and it'll slide on by hand. 

Make sure you are very gentle with the fittings on the feed and return lines. The fittings on the line are very soft aluminum and easy to damage the threads on the steel threads in the PS rack. Make sure you line them up and thread the fittings in by hand as far as you can before using a line wrench. Keep one hand on the line to make sure it is centered as your use the other to turn the fitting.

I can't emphasize this enough - be gentle with those fittings!!  Some hack who worked on my car prior to my owning it cross-threaded the return feed fitting. That cost me a new return line and a second  install of my replacement rack. 

 

Thanks for the reply.  

From what I have read, it sounds like part of my problem may be the steering U Joint binding when I turn the wheel, so replacing it along with the rack makes sense.  I think I may gather the parts for this and then take it to my mechanic and let him have at it.  Your picture of the buggered up lines confirms it for me.

Any idea of the part numbers for the studs you are talking about?  Or sizes for the bolts you used?