Steering Rack Rebuild ??

[davidinnyc]

I'm subscribing to this, and interested. I'll be picking up a 712 steering rack with ~60K miles, so will be doing a full cleaning and evaluation/potential rebuild if it's needed.

[bigjae46]

I bought a seal kit from eBay since I had a leaky pinion seal. It was kind of a pain, just pay attention to what parts come out in what order.

I think it is worth rebuilding especially if the rack is going to sit. The rubber is hard because of age then it will just shrink up and crack. Then you know it is ready for whenever you need it.

[PSUEng]

Gave it a good clean today--outside housing, rack gear and popped the black cap off--cleaned off the grimy grease inside on the input splines. No apparent leaks anywhere from the rack gear outer seals or input pinion seals; I may just replace the hydro pipes and call it good. The old fluid that came out was black, suggesting few--if any--PS fluid flushes had been done. Not sure if the gamble of older parts v. new part quality here is worth taking.

[PSUEng]

I grabbed a yellow tag 712 rack off eBay thinking I'd rebuild it with a seal kit--just something to mess with--clean it up and throw it on the shelf until my stock rack either leaks, or I do a full front suspension bushing refresh and throw it in. The rack arrived in visually very good shape. So I dig around, watch some videos, realize one can get seal kits--but, is it worth tearing into? The rack came out of a 133k mile car, I'd probably replace the hydro lines (easy) and re-grease rack gear; I don't see any leaking from the pinion or rack gear end seals. Is this a "let sleeping dogs lay" kind of thing, or are these worth tearing into? Right from the get go, I can tell BMW/ZF don't want you getting into the pinion with their 32mm(?) 12pt bolt, and 12 point "female" nut after you get that out.

Advice on what to do? Anyone rebuild one?