This 87 turbo I'm driving had a leaky power steering rack. Figured I would rebuild it and do it right so here was the steps I took.

1. Disassemble core rack
2. Bead blast aluminum and re-zinc all hardware
3. Admire how pretty it all turned out
4. Find a friend to send me a rebuild kit practically for free
5. Discover envelope tore in shipment and I am missing a couple seals - no worries - will sub in from my collection - maybe I don't have to replace all of the seals...
6. Rebuild rack and place on car
7. Have alignment done for $100
8. Discover rack still leaking
9. Get spare rack from another friend - fingers crossed that it doesn't leak
10. Install spare rack
11. Discover spare rack leaks
12. Order another rebuild kit - redo nice pretty rack
13. Install on car
14. See that it is leaking up a storm from the middle??
15. Crawl under car to tighten screw ring around tube
16. Still leaks
17. Remove from car and discover two middle seals were getting cut by carrier as I wasn't doing it right - arrrgh
18. Replace two seals from spares
19. Re-install rack on car
20. Ahhh - power steering with no leaks! Now to go after oil leaks

I guess on the plus side now I can swap out racks in record speed

 

If at first you not succeed...try, try again.

Definitely need to get the group together soon.

 

Wow... that doesn't sound like fun. I'm seriously considering replacing my rack with a manual rack. The rack needs to be rebuilt, and the hoses need to be replaced which means pulling the cooler out.. I'd rather pull it and leave it out!

 

Go get a rebuilt rack from a rebuilder who does it for a living and install it.

This is a high pressure system that takes specialized tools and techniques.

 

Plastic surgeon?

 

My version:
1. Remove leaky rack and all associated hoses and hardware.
2. Install manual rack.
3. ????
4. Profit!

How is your power steering pump? When I bought my car, the rack, the hoses and the power steering pump were all leaking. I came across a killer deal on a brand new manual rack for late offset (including a brand new steering shaft), so I jumped on it. After living with it for several years, I've been thinking about going back to power steering. I'm just afraid of all the leaks again

 

I am going to do this job soon. Get a autozone reman rack and call it a day.

 

...For a few more weeks.

 

More like magic really.

 

Hmmm.... I rebuilt mine with the Rennbay kit and it seemed pretty straightforward to me?

 

Glad it worked out now you are an expert! A while back I picked up a reman cardone rack at autozone which they had in a local warehouse same day delivery. It was like $250 or so and picked up VW tie rod ends for $20/PR on ebay. I still have the rebuild seal kit somewhere just ran out of time . Bolt on's are nice once in a while.

 

I've rebuilt two racks now, and the one that I have now leaks a bit, even after rebuild. The other one I rebuilt though, that one never leaked. And here's the kicker: the one that never leaked was repaired with plumbing parts from Home Depot. So, when I first removed it from the car, all of the threads in the rack body came out with the banjo bolt on the low-pressure side.. I'm assuming someone cross-threaded it at some point before I owned it... So, I took the banjo bolt to Home Depot and discovered that a 1/2" to 1/4" NPT pipe bushing was close enough to the same thread to tighten up (because NPT is beveled). So, I bought the bushing and a 1/2" ream and a 1/2 NPT tap and went home. I reamed out the hole into the rack body and threaded the bushing in with a bunch of thread locker. The next trip to Home Depot occurred when I was trying to pull the seal out of the bottom of the valve body in the rack and accidentally knocked the bearing cap out of the bottom of the rack... I couldn't get it to go back in, so I went back to Home Depot and found a 1/4" NPT hollow pipe plug that had an ID which would hold the needle bearings and their cage. Picked up a 1/4" ream and a 1/4" NPT tap and went home. Reamed out the bottom of the rack and tapped it to 1/4" NPT and threaded the pipe cap with bearing assembly in. Then I though, I bet that will walk out eventually. The solution to that part of the problem was to grab an old used rod bearing from a Buick 455 out of a bin of old parts, hammer it into a kind of L bracket and cut a square hole in one end of it that would slip over the square head on the pipe cap. Then drilled a hole in the other end of it and used one of the bolts through the spring plate on the front of the rack to secure it. That rack never leaked a drop. The one I have now? Rebuilt it, everything went exactly as planned, no issues at all, no parts from Home Depot, nothing weird. Leaks.

 

Number 20 requires you to pull out the rack. LOL. Not funny.