Steering Rack Beat?

[superflysr20]

Hey guys... so I was doing a little sliding and ended up smacking a curve with my front passenger side, also scratching my 6 month old xd9's :rl: (shooting the curb) (god we need tracks in MD).


Well as soon as I picked up my pride and drove off I realized that the car seemed like it had no power steering. Also the wheel wouldn't return back to center without me having to manually do it in either direction. When I had the car up on jacks I tried turning it and there was some vibration in the wheel (kinda a steady vibration when you would turn the wheel all the way.

I had some other shit to take care of so I ripped the motor out and had a good look at the rack. Bushings seemed fine, tie rods seemed ok....everything seemed ok except that my control arm on the passenger side was loose. I tightened it all up and got the car aligned but still the same problem. The only thing that has made it a little bit better was taking the hard lines off the rack and then putting them back on and bleeding the system.

WTF?

[projectRDM]

You could have easily blown a seal in the rack, have you pulled both boots off to check for leakage? You can also bend the gear if the impact is hard enough, especially with hard tie rods/ends, since they don't deform as easily the rack takes more of the impact force. I'd say to go ahead and replace it anyway, leaking seals requires a rebuild and it's way easier to find a used one to put back in.

[superflysr20]

You could have easily blown a seal in the rack, have you pulled both boots off to check for leakage? You can also bend the gear if the impact is hard enough, especially with hard tie rods/ends, since they don't deform as easily the rack takes more of the impact force. I'd say to go ahead and replace it anyway, leaking seals requires a rebuild and it's way easier to find a used one to put back in.

I figured as much.... I just didnt want to get a new rack and that not be the problem, I was 90% sure it was the rack but it's that 10% that can be damn expensive

[karl wasabi]

I had the same problem when I got into a tandem crash at the track. My buddy hit my wheel with his bumper support and after that my car wouldn't counter back by itself. Even during normal driving I would have to counter the wheel. I ended up replacing the rack and the problem was fixed.