bigdeano

Ok so I was off today and tomorrow and decided to rebuilt my control arms, reseal the power steering rack, and have my new tires mounted and balanced and take the car for an alignment tomorrow. All went well til I was removing the power steering rack. Hit a brick wall. Turns out some doofus who worked on car prior to me stripped out the allen bolts on some of the lines. One of the lines is the one that is strapped onto the crossmember and goes into the rack gear housing. I can't remove the rack from the car, because I can't disconnect that line. Am I correct in thinking that the only way to remove the rack at this point, is to support the motor, unbolt the motor mounts from that crossmember, and drop the crossmember so that I can drill out those stupid allen bolts? I don't have time to do all that tomorrow so I'm gonna throw it all back together in the morning and take it over to the shop for the tires and alignment to be done. I'm gonna ask the shop tomorrow if they have some bolts with 17ish mm heads that have the holes in them for the fluid to pass through so that I can replace those allen bolts with ones that you can put a wrench on and not run into a problem like this again. If anyone has a better idea for how to remove the rack, any thoughts and ideas are welcome! TIA!

TonyG

Cut the line, remove the rack, replace the line with a new line.

TonyG

Jusii

Had the same issue witch the same line. I used lock pliers to open it.

Like these http://images.orgill.com/200x200/0376087.jpg

I have 3 different sizes of those and the medium sized was the right one.

notthd

Chris- cut the line. I have a spare rack with the line still attached if you need one and a parts car. I'll verify I have everything at lunch today. I should have the bolts and everything you might need Do you ever get to lynchburg? Road trip to Forest ( about 1-1.25 hrs from you)...? I work in the burg and live near by or could ship this to you in a day if you need it badly....

Cheers, Mike

PM me a phone number if you need anything...

Jusii

Now that I read your problem again, are you talking about the pressure line coming from the PS pump? If so, you don't have to remove that line prior removing the rack. Just unbolt the support from crossmember ja disconnect the line from PS pump. Only the return line has to be disconnected from the rack.

bigdeano

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Gonna *try* the vice grip method on it sometime in the next 2 weeks when I get the time. Not much room up in there so we'll see how it goes. If I have no joy with that, I'll cut the line and be giving Mike a call.