| Here are a few pictures of replacing a steering rack. It took us about four hours. That includes taking pictures and setting the wheel alignment with a measuring tape. |
| The pictures should only supplement a good manual. I didn't take a picture of every step. I prefer the Robert Bentley manual but the Haynes manual isn't too bad for ten bucks. |
| Here's Doc starting the job by removing the wheels. We then put the front end of the car on jackstands. |
| Here's the metal clamp you need to remove. It holds one of the metal fluid lines to the rack. There are also a couple of plastic ties that need to be removed. |
| Then remove the return line and the fluid will drain out. |
| Here we removed the tie rod ends from the shaft, noting the lock nut position. You can transfer the tie-rod end locking nut to the new rack, in the same position. |
| Here you can see where one of the two big rack mounting bolts was removed. |
| Here I realized it's easier to disconnect the pump end of the supply line and swap it to the new rack after the old rack is removed. To remove both lines at the rack you need a short wrench. The problem with a shorter wrench is it's even harder to get enough leverage to break it loose. |
| The rack is slid to the passenger side so you can drop this side down. The only way I could get it out was to roll the rack back torward the rear of the car. |
| Here I swapped the supply line that we removed with the old rack to the new rack. Then put a bag over the line connections to prevent contamination when sliding the new rack into place. |
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It turned out to be quite a day. Regardless, few hours later they were back on the road! I didn't take pictures of a very important step. You should remember to flush the steering pump before you connect it to the new rack. I did this by connecting an old coolant hose to the output of the pump. Then ran it down to the drain pan where the return line was still hanging. With the coil wire disconnected you can pour some steering fluid into the resivoir while someone cranks the engine. Then you'll see dirty fluid coming out of the drain hose while the engine is cranking. I believe it took about ten seconds of cranking before I saw fresh fluid come out. Remember, you should have a manual handy when doing any job like this! |
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