Any Cheap(er) Repairs For Leaking Rack?

[angrydan]

Well, it would appear that my steering rack is starting to leak fluid pretty badly. The dealer wants around $800 to replace the rack with a new one and my mechanic wanted about the same ($750)

Does anyone know of any cheap(er) ways to fix this?

Any help is appreciated!

[Noir]

Originally posted by angrydan
Well, it would appear that my steering rack is starting to leak fluid pretty badly. The dealer wants around $800 to replace the rack with a new one and my mechanic wanted about the same ($750)

Does anyone know of any cheap(er) ways to fix this?

Any help is appreciated!

Actually yeah, I got my steering rack rebuilt for $300 locally. Check your yellow pages and see if you can find one or call some shops/dealers and see if they know anyone. You could also try www.car-parts.com to see if you can get a good used one. Those are good too for cheap. If you're lucky you can find one for $150-$200.

Good luck man.

[angrydan]

Noir:

Is that including labor? Or just for parts? and did a local mechanic do it? or some retail auto service center?

[Noir]

Originally posted by angrydan
Noir:

Is that including labor? Or just for parts? and did a local mechanic do it? or some retail auto service center?

That's the whole rebuild. The only problem would be that you would have to remove the rack or have a mechanic remove it for you.

Your mechanic will probably charge you for labor to remove and install.

You will pay approx. $300 for the rebuild which can take a few days.

You will need to do an alignment when it's done. That's what I did. My mechanic charged me about $150 for to remove the old leaky rack and install the rebuilt one.

If that's too much trouble. Look for remanufactured ones from Autozone and the online parts stores. I remember seeing a few for around $350 that will work with our cars, you'd have to send the core back and it would take about 3-4 weeks for you to get it but it's less hassle but takes more time. I got mine rebuilt and installed within 3 days versus 4 weeks.

[blue thunder]

Yeah, I just had the rack service a few days ago. I got a remanufactured unit with a three year warranty from the steering store on the net. Listed there at 290.00 after core return. The labor was 214.00 at the dealer. I thought I made out well but the P/S pump is toast as well. Another 500.00 all told to correct this. The dealers prices are absurdly high. Check 1st subaru parts.com for at least 25% off. I drove for a while with a leaking rack and put the lucas stop leak to slow it down. I may have damaged the pump because of the viscosity difference putting off the inevitable.

Mike

[Noir]

Originally posted by blue thunder
Yeah, I just had the rack service a few days ago. I got a remanufactured unit with a three year warranty from the steering store on the net. Listed there at 290.00 after core return. The labor was 214.00 at the dealer. I thought I made out well but the P/S pump is toast as well. Another 500.00 all told to correct this. The dealers prices are absurdly high. Check 1st subaru parts.com for at least 25% off. I drove for a while with a leaking rack and put the lucas stop leak to slow it down. I may have damaged the pump because of the viscosity difference putting off the inevitable.

Mike

don't forget that if you're ordering OEM parts that Liberty Subaru gives 25% (Car and Driver Discounts) off their parts. Russ is quite helpful there in the parts department.

[angrydan]

Will a dealer install a part that you didn't buy from them, though? That just seems to be one of those things they would flip out over.

[blue thunder]

My subaru dealer does. They just warranty the labor and not the part itself. I saved 111.00 on a P/S pump going to a discount OEM distributor so they understand my situation knowing the money I have piled into this car over the years.

Mike

[svx_commuter]

Lucas power steering additive works good but might take awhile.

[alia176]

I just went through the same thing! Must be an epidemic!
A local rebuilder charged $125 with Lifetme. As someone said, you need to drop the entire rack. Just so you know what this entails:

-degrease under car as much as possible. I had an Exon Valdeez oil spill going on under there.
-PB Blast everything at least a week early. Again on the exhaust nuts/bolts.
-drop the exhaust system (front half, including the center cat). Medium difficulty depending on the amount of your corrosion. If you managed to remove one of the studs out of the front exhaust flange, no worries. Just put the stud with the nut on a vise and use a stud puller to separate the two. My stud remover looks like sockets and come in various metric sizes.
-disconnect both O2s. Easy if you have an O2 socket.
-drop the front driver side halfshaft (at the transaxle only, leave it dangling). Easy, need a punch and a hammer.
-drop the cross member under the front diff pan. Easy, two bolts.
-disconnect the Universal joint coupler between the steering shaft and the steering rack gearbox. Medium due to tight accessiblity.
-disconnect the two steering rack hyd pipe connections and one wire (I have a speed sens rack). Remove the rack out of the vehicle. Medium difficulty due to the need to maneuver the rack out of the car. FSM will show you the proper way to do this.

Here's my famous line "while you're in there "!
- R/R (replace/renew) the exhaust pipe "donuts" for a quiter sound. There are two smaller ones, and one larger one. Using a sand paper/die grinder with sand paper bit, smooth out the area where the donuts reside. There're lots of crap in this area and the better cleaning you do, the better job the donuts will do and last longer. Easy, wear a face shield!
-drop the tranny oil pan, R/R the metal screen. You can reuse the thick, oem rubber gasket if you're careful. Easy but messy.
-since the ATF is empty, R/R or add an external tranny filter per SOA recall. The external filter kit comes with everything you need. I only needed the filter but it only came as a kit! This left me with extra hoses for other stuff! Easy.
-R/R leaky hoses on AT or PS as needed. Easy.
-R/R all exhaust nuts/bolts at the center cat converter. You'll prolly waste a couple while removing the cat anyway, might as well do them all!
-apply antiseize on ALL exhaust hardware and O2 sensors (carefully) for future ease of removal.
-degrease the entire car underneath to your heart's content.
You'll be making a ton of mess on the ground so be prepared for this. You'll need at least two cans of brake parts cleaner for cleaning out stuff.

Didn't mean to discourage anyone but just wanted to let you know what i just went through. The biggest thing I can suggest is to elevate the car as HIGH as possible. I'll put some pics in my locker if I think of it. I have a second vehicle, so I stretched this projecct over two weekends. First weekend, I dropped everything and let all oil drain all week. Kitty litter was all over the ground to soak up the oil that didn't drop into my catch pan. During the week, all parts were ordered through subaruparts.com. Trish was awesome. After cleaning up the ground, it was time to degrease. I went through thee cans of engine degreaser during the week. Used a power washer as much as possible.

Safety: wear safety glasses at all times and mechanic gloves. You can wear rubber gloves for the oily/grease stuff. Wear a face shied if you're using a die grinder or similar material. Pneumatic tools will help out tremendously, especially for the removal of the exhaust system. Safety glass while you power wash.

Helps to have a helper fetch tools while you're under the car. Helper can help with removal of the rack, turn the wheels as needed, drag stuff out of the car as you remove them, hand you snacks and refreshments. Also, have lots of light.

Now I'm ready to bleed the system. Can't wait to "git her done" and get back on the road!

Good luck.

Ali
'92 LS-L
105k miles
Chicagoland

[Beav]

If you have the ability to r&r the rack, rebuilding it shouldn't prove to be much of a task.

[gl1674]

Beav,

Can't quite agree - to rebuild a rack you will need a press, just hammering out the old seal did not work for me. You will also need to hone the cylinder walls. The gearbox develops leaks too, rebuilding it is a whole different story (I haven't tried that one).

Just the cost of the rebuild kits, the time/tools it requires and the questionable outcome it produces do not justify the hassle.

[Beav]

Not always the case, in fact that's rarely the case. The only time I've had difficulty rebuilding any rack was due to impact damage and it only took once to learn that lesson. I've probably rebuilt over one hundred racks over the years. I will admit that with the falling cost of rebuilts lately I don't rebuild them often these days but when the price ratio is high I will.

I have never seen a rack require honing, but there are some known rack models (mostly older GMs) that had issues with the control valve wearing in its bore, requiring a stainless steel sleeve to be inserted. Then again this is a model that the reman price has fallen to around $100 and is no longer cost effective to rebuild in the shop.

My point was based on considerable experience but that doesn't preclude particular situations. However I have found rebuilding racks to be a fairly simple and straightforward procedure and rarely one that requires any special tools or abilities.

[gl1674]

I have never seen a rack require honing,

Give me a good one and I'll give you one with a very interesting wear pattern. :-)

You can hang it on a wall, you can show it customers to persuade them that they need a brand new rack :-)

[Beav]

I'm not doubting you, I've never said that I've seen everything. Just in my experience I'd consider it odd, that's all.