Broken Power Steering Cylinder Line and Solid Rack Mounting

[TimIacobucci]

Hello everyone. My name is Tim Iacobucci and this is my first post here, I will get to general introductions and stuff about my car in another thread in the future possibly. But for now straight to business.

I am fixing a few major problems with my new 91 Talon and of those the one that I am addressing now is the leaking power steering. I have contemplated a manual conversion, I even sourced a junkyard 1.8L manual rack, but decided I liked the quicker ratio of the power rack and also my girlfriend will be driving the car and she wasn't pleased about that prospect.

I couldn't see too well with the rack mounted on the car behind the transfer case and 3" exhaust and all the damn braces where the leak was specifically, other than broken and wet dust boots. I ordered a seal kit figuring it was an internal leak in the rack. After pulling it all out of the car and having my seal kit I have learned that is not the case.

One of the steel lines that runs along side the rack is badly rusted and leaking. I verified this with compressed air and saw a pretty spurt of fluid coming from the middle of the line where it is all corroded. Here are some pictures.

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Local part stores don't seem to have these lines, I have not inquired yet but might the Mitsubishi dealership stock these parts?

I am also wondering with the room (there is a BIT there) where it is mounted could I not just bend up some steel line and put the old fittings back on the end of the new line to replace the rusted one?

Has anyone done this before?

There are 2 reasons I am contemplating this vs. buying a new rack. First is cost, I have a few other things to fix and spend money on to get the car running well and $270 is the cheapest I have found for a new rack.

The other reason is that the line rusted because of the way it was routed through the passenger side rubber frame mount bushing. I have never seen anything like this before and it seems pretty stupid to me as this is pretty much the only part of the line that looks this bad. When I take the time and effort to repair something I like to understand why it broke in the first place and try and resolve that issue and prevent it from happening again in the future. I don't think this routing is a good idea and making a new line to reroute it around the mounting bracket seems like a good idea to me.

Am I missing anything important why this could be a bad idea? I really don't want to rip all the stuff back out of the car to mess with this thing again for a good while.

Also, while I have the thing out, has anyone ever solid mounted a steering rack in these cars before? I searched and could not find anything on it. I can't even find polyurethane bushings in fact. Are there any products either poly or solid mount for the steering bushings?

I sort of liked the feel of the rack without power assist and the rubber isolates the transmission of the wheel forces so I figured I could gain back a bit of the road feel of manual steering while repairing the power assist if I could solid mount the rack to the frame.

I have replaced the rag joint on older worm and sector cars I've had with solid bushings and the difference in feel is dramatic even with very overboosted power assist.

The body of this rack is aluminum though, do you think hard mounting it with steel spacers on the stock brackets could end up cracking it? The stock rubber especially on the thrust sides is pretty thin anyways so I don't think this is such a huge difference really but what do you think?

Should I also rebuild the rack with the seal kit since I've got it? I could save more money buy returning the seal kit but the thing will be pretty much like new if I go through it all now while I've got it out.

 

[frankenstein406]

just buy new lines $100 for both at dealer im in the same boat right now :[, paint them good so no more rust gets on them

 

[TimIacobucci]

$100! Damn that is robbery for 20 inches of steel line. No wonder I have never dealt with dealerships before.

I will see how much custom lines will cost, I realized it is an O ring fitting, I can bend and make flare fittings but I have nothing to make the double flare for an O ring.

I still don't like that routing, paint or no you are putting a fluid line under external load, the passenger side does not even have any thrust surfaces to stop the bushing from sliding against the line either. It's no wonder the paint rubbed off and it rusted out, it's just a bad design.

 

[frankenstein406]

you could leave a inch or two and use high prussure fittings and brake line to then paint them good and put rubber hoses on them to pretect against wear

 

[Auto RS T]

Well if you are determined to do this I'm sure you can make the line fairly cheap, there are double flare fittings to help you make that flare. When I replaced my power rack a few years ago I re-routed that line under the mounting bracket and put a solid piece of steel rod in the bushing to act as the line for stability. Worked fine and I wasn't worried about it rusting again. To clean the bushings of all the rust I blasted them in a bead cabinet, worked great. I haven't heard of anyone mounting the rack solidly to the body, but I imagine it would be quite a project with the way the rack is shaped at the mounting location. Are you sure the rack tube is aluminum? I had a power rack converted to manual, following the "Miata mod", one thing I had done was cut those fittings off the tube and had it welded shut, the welder never mentioned that the body was aluminum and I never thought to check. I'm fairly certain its not.

Edit: Here's a thread from a couple years back, if these guys didn't do it, I'm sure its not worth it. The part number for OEM replacement bushings is at the bottom.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/road-course-autocross/268936-steering-rack-bushings.html

 

[TimIacobucci]

Thanks for the info and the link. That thread got me thinking.

there are double flare fittings to help you make that flare. When I replaced my power rack a few years ago I re-routed that line under the mounting bracket

What tool did you use exactly to make the flare for that fitting? It's not a standard type double flare.

Normal double flare

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Fitting on steering line

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I remember reading on the Talon Digest about someone modifying the bracket by bending the sides outward slightly so the bracket contacted the rack, metal on metal. Seems like a good way to do it.

This part got me thinking in addition to your comments

the welder never mentioned that the body was aluminum and I never thought to check. I'm fairly certain its not.

I checked it right now with a magnet and I guess it is steel. There are magnetic forms of aluminum but it is pretty unlikely the rack is made of that. I am just surprised how clean and free of rust the unpainted area under the driver side bushing was so I assumed it was aluminum.

If I can just bend the brackets out a bit to get a nice fit up and I pull everything out of the rack to rebuild it why can't I just weld the brackets directly onto the body? That would sure mount it pretty solid wouldn't it? And if it is steel I doubt it will fatigue and crack very easily. That actually seems pretty simple.

 

[Theo90TSIAWD]

If you are going to spend $100 you might as well get a new rebuilt rack. There is a guy who rebuilds racks for cars and sells them on ebay. They do a damn good quality job on them too. I bought my rack for $150 from him after realizing the inside of my rack was to beat up to put new seals in.

His ebay name is garo_steering_parts_international; He does a full tear down, machines them and sleeves them if they need it, finish up the inside to spec, and fully rebuild it to better than OEM quality. They all get tested to make sure they are properly sealed up before they get sold to anyone.

They have great customer service and while I'm new here so my opinion doesn't hold much weight yet, I would point anyone in his direction with full confidence they will be a happy customer. He also has 100% positive feed back.

1990 EAGLE TALON POWER STEERING RACK AND PINION:eBay Motors (item 220355510197 end time Aug-02-09 00:05:27 PDT)

 

[Theo90TSIAWD]

By the way, I have two extra sets of hoses sitting around. I might be willing to part ways with one of them if you aren't interested in the above post.

 

[LocknessMonster]

Being cheap myself I would cut out the bad part of the line and then just flair in a new peice so then you wouldnt have to try and make that o ring side.

 

[Auto RS T]

I didn't make that flare, I bought a new rack and just re-routed the line so it wouldn't go through the bushing. I have seen large flaring kits that have the fittings in there to make that flare. It's similar to the flare on newer fuel injection, like fuel filter connections.

I would be hesitant to weld the brackets to the body in case I needed to remove it in the future, but that sure would make it solid. Once you tweak the brackets and get it up there, it should be pretty solid. I'm betting the bushing area was so clean on the rack because it was moving around keeping that area fresh.

Theo90TSIAWD's rack sounds pretty promising and its cheap, if you want to rebuild the rack he has a couple sets of lines, that way you wouldn't have to locate the flare tool.

 

[TimIacobucci]

Well I did end up buying the lines off of Theo (Theo90TSIAWD), thanks again man.

So I tore down and replaced most of the seals in my rack today. I would still like to try and solid mount the brackets.

I have a few ideas and a few questions.

Firstly the rack is both steel AND aluminum.

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The orange thing is a magnet. The body of the rack to the left in the picture is steel and painted black so it won't rust. You can also see the rust around the hose fittings where they insert into the body.

The steel portion is pressed into the aluminum section, this is why is attracts the magnet over that section of the alunium, because there is still steel just beneath it. Further out on that section the magnet does not stick and that cleaned up real nice and was never painted black just covered in grime making is appear to match the pressed in steel section rather well.

So, I cannot weld that side of the bracket directly to the body of the rack. I am thinking to bend the bracket out and/or weld up the sides of the bracket to span the gap where the rubber bushing would have been.

I would also shim the backside of the rack to fill the space where the rubber was to take up the clearance so the bracket can lock it down tight when bolted in place.

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I am still considering welding the bracket on the steel section of the body though. My only concern here is potentially warping the inner tube surface that the shaft seal rides on. This would pretty much trash the rack. The body minus the shaft and pinion gear is real light and the tube is surprisingly thin wall. I am not sure this is such a good idea now. But there really is nothing so far as a thrust locator is concerned on that side and mounting it solid front to back and up and down but not side to side may allow it to just slide and grind the rack body against the solid bracket. A solid mount must be just that, solid, to function correctly.