[V6-12v] Piece of cake: steering rack boot replacement

[Tom Christiansen]

Folks,

Replacing the steering rack boot on my 1994 90S turned out to be a piece of 
cake. Here's how I did it (follow at your own risk and expense):

1) Jack the front of the car up and place on jack stands.
2) Remove plastic engine cover.
3) Remove intake plenum + air hose (gives you a bit more room to work).
4) Turn the wheels all the way right (makes it easier to get at the bolts 
on the rack).
5) Remove the two bolts connecting the steering rack to the bracket holding 
the steering damper and tie rod ends.
6) Flip the bracket for the damper out of the way and pull the tie rod 
bracket off the rack (or turn the wheels all the way left and it'll drop off).
7) The boot is held in one end by a plastic piece that slides off the rack 
shaft. Lube with Petosin or similar to make the plastic piece slide a bit 
easier. It takes a little wiggling but it'll get off.
8) Cut the metal clamp on the other end of the boot and remove boot, clamp.
9) Wipe off any dirt and other contaminants.
10) Insert that plastic piece for the boot in the new boot (it's A LOT 
easier to do with the boot off the car).
11) If you made it this far you'll have no trouble assembling the stuff. 
Assembly is reverse of removal. I used wire ties for clamping the boot to 
the steering rack, but you could use a narrow hose clamp as well.
12) Use two NEW M10x1.5 self-locking nuts on the bolts holding the brackets 
to the rack. The bolts are torqued to 45 Nm, the nuts to 35 Nm. It's pretty 
easy to get to the nuts from the bottom using a U-joint and a few long 
extensions. You don't need to remove the belly pan for this.
13) As you've fiddled with the tie rods, the toe angle is now out of whack. 
Go get the wheels realigned.

I think I spent about 1.5 hours on the job including the 15 minute trip (on 
foot) to the hardware store for the nuts. It's really no biggie.

Tom