|
Make sure you mark the location of your old tie rod ends. When you put new ones on (and you should) you'll have to take it to be aligned. When I did mine, I tried to be as accurate as possible and I still ended up with a front end shake like Elvis in the early days.
The yoke that connects the steering column to the rack was an absolute bear to remove because of corrosion, probably because of 2 disimilar metals. The yoke is aluminum, and the rack is steel. There's a slot in the yoke that you can put a screw driver in to pry it apart if necessary.
When you put the rack on, make sure the rack is centered. When it looks like there's equal distance between the two outer ends of the rack it's not centered. One side will be longer than the other when it's centered, if I remember correctly, the passenger side will be the longer of the two.
There's a notch in the shaft that attaches to the steering column. The bolt on the yoke should fit in that notch when you reassemble.
Keep your hose ends clean and use new washers. I would recommend removing the belt to the steering pump and turning the pulley by hand to get any old fluid out. After reassembly, load up the reservoir with fluid and turn the pulley by hand to move fluid down into the rack. Put the belt back on and turn the steering wheel back and forth while it's still up on jacks, keeping an eye on the fluid level. The engine should be off while doing this.
Finally, start the car, move the steering wheel back and forth and top of the fluid as necessary. Keep a VERY close eye on the fluid level while doing this. Even though I did all of the priming with the engine off, the fluid level went down very quickly when I was turning the steering wheel with the engine on.
|
