Rack removal procedures
Well.. after staring at it for quite a few moments, here is the procedure I finally did for this job. Some of you may not think some steps are necessary, but I did them all for easier access and a cleaner job overall.
Begin with raising and supporting the vehicle high enough to get underneath. Remove serpentine belt for ease of access from underneath. Drain oil and remove oil filter.
Remove alternator wire harness from alternator and move aside. Remove battery and bolt holding fuse box to battery tray. Lay fuse box over into battery tray.
Drain P/S pump; I used a pet syringe and section of hose to draw majority of fluid from top of reservoir. Disconnect pressure hose fitting at P/S pump. Place small container up next to outlet and slowly rotate P/S pump pulley clockwise to pump fluid out. Once you hear slurping sounds, wait for a few seconds for fluid to settle and rotate pulley again to get last amounts of fluid out. Remove P/S soft return line from pump. Catch any remaining drips.
Remove wiring harness bracket bolt from frame near lower radiator hose, move wiring forward. From above, you now have better access to reach the pressure hose fitting at the 90 degree elbow piece. *Do NOT rotate the 21mm fitting at end of elbow! Disconnect by holding elbow end stationary and turning the smaller 18mm hose end. Let hose hang below car and catch any drips. There would be a lot more mess at this point if you did not drain P/S pump before this step.
From underneath, you can now reach the oem pinch-style hose clamp on the return line at the rack unit with pliers. Remove return line from rack unit. *I cut this end of the hose on my car so it easily peeled off. A replacement 2ft. length of SAE J189 hose is about $4, cut length to fit.
Remove steering column pinch bolt, pry steering shaft clamp upward off of rack input shaft and let hang. Loosen locknut on tie-rods. Pop tie-rod ends from spindles with proper tool. Mark location and count the number of turns for each tie-rod end as you remove from them from the tie-rods.
Loosen rack to frame bolts and remove nuts from inside frame access holes. Support the rack as you remove the d-side bolt. Pull out the p-side bolt enough to clear frame hole and lower slightly to fully remove from rack unit. Carefully lower rack unit down slightly enough to access 90 degree elbow connection at rack from d-side wheel well. Do NOT allow to weight of rack to rest on elbow fitting. A second person to crack this 18mm fitting loose is helpful at this point while you hold it steady. Remove 90 degree elbow from rack. The rack unit will now easily lower out of frame.
I am replacing my rack unit with a remanufactured one, so I also have to remove the return line fitting from the old unit and transfer both pieces to the new rack unit. Replace the nylon o-rings before reattaching to new unit. You will have to stretch them to fit over the threads and into place on the fittings. These o-rings came with my new rack unit. You may have trouble finding them separately, otherwise... Carquest has Ford power steering kit that is supposed to have these specific o-rings... or I would suggest looking at hydraulic cross-applications for similar ones.
Before reassembly you will want to flush the system of the old fluid that may have dirt and debris from any time you open the large cap on the reservoir.
To flush the reservoir and pump only; I re-attached both pressure and a second section of soft return hose to the P/S pump. Leave the lower end of the pressure hose hanging over a container under the car. Loop this second section of soft hose upward high enough so fluid does not leak out. Fill the reservoir with fresh fluid and manually turn the pulley to pump the fluid out and down the pressure hose into the container. Keep rotating pulley and refilling as necessary until the fluid is running clear of any dirt and debris out lower end of hose. Continue until reservoir is empty again to avoid a large mess later when re-attaching fittings. Refill reservoir and follow system bleeding procedure as described in repair manuals, topping off as needed.
To flush old rack if re-installing same unit; With rack unit in place, connect pressure and soft return line to rack unit as described above. Connect lower end of pressure line to rack unit via the 90 degree fitting you've already re-intalled. Connect a second section of return line hose to rack unit but leave other end hanging over container. Proceed as above with pumping old fluid out until it runs clear and continue until reservoir is empty as described above. Disconnect looped soft hose from P/S pump and connect other end of hose coming from rack unit to P/S pump return inlet. Refill reservoir and follow system bleeding procedure as described in repair manuals, topping off as needed.
I hope this helps anyone else looking to do this job themselves instead of paying someone else to do it for them. You may read the books and decide it's too hard but it's really not that bad with proper procedures!
