Steering rack boot

[urquattro]

David has a point ... if you are going to the trouble of replacing the boot
it isn't that much less involved than swapping the rack ... AAMOF, since you
need to pull the hydraulic lines on the rack to do the boot it might
actually be more involved!  ;-)  I don't know how much rebuilt racks and
boots go for in Europe, so the equation may be slightly different for you
there ...

My theory is that the boot failure is at least a contributor to the rack
leaking.  If you look at the design of the outer cylinder of the rack it is
almost designed to develop problems once the boot fails.  The hole in the
outer cylinder that allows access for the steering linkage is cut so that
any garbage that makes it in there will collect along the inner bottom
surface, where it can get over to where the seals are and wear them down.
On my '88 5kCSQ the boot actually became brittle and crumbled. providing
most all of the material that was inside the cylinder.

If you have no other signs of leakage as yet and can find a boot for a
fairly reasonable price, it might be worth a try at replacement.  You can
disconnect the steering linkage, the steering column and the bolts at each
end of the rack to allow it to be moved inside the engine compartment.  You
might want to leave the pressure and return lines attached, or disconnect
them if they seem to be restricting movement of the rack.  I would simply
cut away the old boot and then disconnect the hydraulic lines to the piston
itself.  This should allow you to slide the new boot on and put it all back
together.  I suppose that it would be good to try to clean out any
contaminant inside the cylinder before installing the new boot.

HTH!
Steve Buchholz
San Jose, CA (USA)

> The boot runs 1/2 the price of a Jorgen rebuild - about 90.00 as I
> recall. The sweat and hassle to pull that rack for just the boot isn't
> worth it to me - if you pull it, have it rebuilt. I have the same problem
> in my v8q - its staying until it starts leaking.
>
> Eyvind Spangen wrote:
>
> > The steering rack boot on the 200TQ is torn. Should I remove the rack
> > to replace the boot, or should I just leave it as it is until the
> > steering rack need replacement? Is there a way to replace the boot
> > without removing the rack? It does not leak, steering is very "tight"
> > and nice, only the rubber boot is torn..