steering rack question

[g2ic02]

i was wondering if anyone has disabled there powersteering and recirculated there rack....and if they have which lines to you have to loop...

what i was thinking of doing is making sure my rack was full of power steering fluid(not sure how i am going to do this with no working powersteering pump)...then just looping the pressurized line from the pump with the non pressurized line from the filler...any insight would be awesome

[Rennen]

I just did this last weekend on my '89. There are two lines running into the rack near the frame rail. I believe that the upper is the inlet, and lower is the outlet. Anyway, I took about 6" of reinforced rubber fuel line and a couple hose clamps and simply looped inlet to outlet. In order to ensure that my rack was full of fluid, I first attached a funnel full of ATF to the hose on the inlet, and ran the outlet to a drain pan with a separate hose. I turned the rack back and forth till it felt like most of the air was gone, and quickly joined inlet to outlet.


This is probably not the right way, but its all I felt like doing after swapping racks.

[g2ic02]

sounds like a plan thanks for the info....
just a quick question why did you use tranny fluid instead of just using power steering fluid???
if by atf you don't mean auto tranny fluid then disregard this comment

[Rennen]

Nissan...... in their infinite wisdom... :rolleyes: Decided that they would use automatic transmission fluid in their steering racks instead of PS fluid like everyone else. So, if you (or a previous owner :mad: ) ever put PS fluid in there, it's viscosity allows it to get between the seals and slowly deteriorate them, leading to leaks.... everywhere. So in my case, I just found a new steering rack in a junkyard and swapped them.

-Matt

[g2ic02]

shit......i have definetly put power steering fluid in it cuz the high pressure line used to leak a bit....damnit