Basic steering rack question

[Canadian818]

With regards removing the hard lines. I know to link the two lines on the main body like in the GRM video, but what about the other ends of those lines. There's 4 connections for hard lines just below the u-joints, and when spinning the rack fluid runs from them. Are these plugged? Do I drain all the fluid first? If not, won't it build pressure?

Thanks

[Xusia]

There is no pressure, because you have removed the supply lines. Any residual fluid may move around, but it is not under any pressure. If you want to avoid taking it apart, I would just keep turning it until fluid stops draining, then plug the holes. You can use short bolts, a weld, or whatever.

[Canadian818]

There is no pressure, because you have removed the supply lines. Any residual fluid may move around, but it is not under any pressure. If you want to avoid taking it apart, I would just keep turning it until fluid stops draining, then plug the holes. You can use short bolts, a weld, or whatever.

Thanks Xusia!

[Goldwing]

I was thinking about cutting the lines coming out of each of those four ports and capping them with rubber caps with hose clamps. What did you do for those? I feel reluctant to do anything non-reversible for the unlikely case I decide I want power steering. Maybe 25 years from now when I'm getting old, lol. I don't know, burning bridges, etc. it seems like its just valving, like mentioned above, with no pumping or pressure.

[Xusia]

I suppose you could do that, but why not just get some bolts of the appropriate size? I used the fittings and just plugged them with hot glue. I hope that won't be so easy to undo.

[Goldwing]

Filling the fittings with hot glue or even silicone sounds like a great idea. Cleaner look, cheap, and undo able, with some cleaning. Other than a bucket of Subaru bolts, I don't have many metric bolts laying around, I'd have to buy them likely and may damage the seating area if not careful. Keep the options open.

[RM1SepEx]

I used that nice red high temp RTV to fill my holes, make sure that they are clean and dry. I removed the piston seal but not the piston. If you leave the seal in you need to loop the two pressurized fluid holes on the rack as even air pressure would pop out the RTV.

[Goldwing]

Thanks for clarifying. I did loop the rack ports. Cut both lines, pointed them together and used a fuel line to link them finishing the loop after burping most of the fluid. I used silicone on the 4 steering column ports since the silicone tube from working on the firewall was within reach from my stool. Trimmed the lines shorter than the fittings, cleaned them, and filled em with silicone. Mounted the steering rack today.

[longislandwrx]

If you want a slightly nicer look, An npt plug fits nice for the top hole that you can see near the quill without tapping. It's a little loose so add some rtv. The others you can't see so it doesn't matter what they look like.

[Rasmus]

You can use short bolts, a weld, or whatever.

I was just going to ask if I could just weld 'em up. Ill just cut off the bungs and weld the tube shut for a cleaner look. How thick is the steering rack wall? I'll probably have to bust out the .024" wire.

[RM1SepEx]

Welding is OK only if you remove the seals... I thought about just welding in the holes of the stock fittings but I'm LAZY and the RTV works fine...

[metalmaker12]

If you manufacture a 3/8 steel circle insert, you could mig or tig it is carefully with .030 mig or .045 tig

[FFRSpec72]

Why not just take off all the hard lines be done with it, why go through all this?

[Xusia]

I was just going to ask if I could just weld 'em up. Ill just cut off the bungs and weld the tube shut for a cleaner look. How thick is the steering rack wall? I'll probably have to bust out the .024" wire.

The rack body itself is not very thick. I think you would have to be careful when welding to prevent distortion. Also, the holes are big enough, you'd almost certainly have to use some kind of plug. If you cut the entire piston off the rack, there is a ton of room to work with. If you only remove the seal, or if you don't even do that, then I think it would be rather hard to do without having the result interfere with the operation of the rack. My advice is the leave the bungs, and simply fill them with a weld, epoxy, hot glue, silicone, etc. It's really hardly noticeable.

The pinion on the other hand, is plenty thick. And if you remove the valve body, there isn't much to worry about. But again, the holes are large enough, you probably need some kind of plug.


Why not just take off all the hard lines be done with it, why go through all this?

Because that leave 6 holes for dirt/debris/whatever to enter and wreck havoc. Hot glue or silicone is super easy to do, so why not take such an easy preventative measure?