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I have just taken on a rack rebuild myself. Replacing just the pinion seal would possibly be doable - you'd have to take out the pinion and spool valve assembly, then drive the seal out from the back. I think you could sneak a socket extension or punch behind the still-installed rack bar to accomplish this. If There are several seals you'd need to take care of to fully accomplish this job - not just one pinion seal. However, there are a couple things you might want to consider before undertaking it.
1) You can't buy the seals individually as far as I know, so you'd have to buy the full rebuild kit no matter what, and then just not use some of the seals.
2) If you're willing to do the partial rebuild, there's not THAT much more work to a full rebuild. The trickiest part is getting a snap ring on the right side of the rack out, so you can withdraw the rack bar and do the piston seals. You wouldn't have to do this on a partial rebuild like you're talking about, but it seems that if you are getting it out of the car and clean enough to handle (it's covered in grime, right? Isn't everybody's?), you might want to do everything as preventative maintenance.
3) Is your rack all-aluminum, or does it have the cast iron pinion/spool valve housing pinned to the rack body? The all-aluminum ones are famous for leaks due to grooves being worn in the soft aluminum spool valve housing by the PTFE spool valve seals. Can't fix this with a rebuild. Check with a magnet before you invest time/money. The cast iron part is the "turret" where the steering shaft goes in.
4) Cardone offers decent racks. They even say that they re-sleeve aluminum racks as a matter of course in their rebuilds, to avoid leaks and increase reliability. Given that you can probably get a Cardone rebuild locally, you can take it back if it's no good. And then you don't have to deal with all the grime.
The only reason I'm doing a rebuild on my rack myself is because I happened to come across a clapped-out rack with a cast iron housing for free (I can therefore still drive while doing the rebuild at my leisure), and I already had a set of NOS inner tie rod ends from another project that didn't come to fruition, and I'm weirdly curious about what's exactly inside these things. I've "home-remanufactured" old- and new-style brake calipers, an alternator, a PS pump, an A/C compressor, and a starter, so this seems like the next thing on the list...
posted by 75.69.61...
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