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I've got an '06 TSX with a leaking seal in my rack and pinion. According to the dealer, the whole rack needs to be replaced. I've searched this site for people with similar issues, but the only ones I could find were still under warranty and were replaced by the dealer. Has anybody replaced one themselves? How difficult of a job would this be to do in my driveway?
pretty easy with crow bar. put car on jack stand, perhaps under lower control arms. set ebrake. make sure ground is level. losen front subframe bolts about an inch and remove rear subframe bolts. You should be able to pry on back of subframe, put an old large socket or piece of 2x4 lumber wedged between body and subframe and slide out the rack on the driver side. You first have to disconnect steering colum from inside the car. of course disconnect the ps hose and other rubber hose. and 4 bolts hold the rack to the subframe. then after removing the tires, the outter tire rods need to be removed from the knuckles. Do you have the new rack? does it have tie rods included. I know most remans you have to keep outter tie rods from the old one.
The TSB for the Power Steering squeaking (leaking rack and pinion) has pretty detailed instructions (illustrated!) for removal. Should be able to find it on the TSB/Recall page.
pretty easy with crow bar. put car on jack stand, perhaps under lower control arms. set ebrake. make sure ground is level. losen front subframe bolts about an inch and remove rear subframe bolts. You should be able to pry on back of subframe, put an old large socket or piece of 2x4 lumber wedged between body and subframe and slide out the rack on the driver side. You first have to disconnect steering colum from inside the car. of course disconnect the ps hose and other rubber hose. and 4 bolts hold the rack to the subframe. then after removing the tires, the outter tire rods need to be removed from the knuckles. Do you have the new rack? does it have tie rods included. I know most remans you have to keep outter tie rods from the old one.
that sounds about right,but if your going to do it on the floor it might get complicated.its alot easier doing it on a lift.
pretty easy with crow bar. put car on jack stand, perhaps under lower control arms. set ebrake. make sure ground is level. losen front subframe bolts about an inch and remove rear subframe bolts. You should be able to pry on back of subframe, put an old large socket or piece of 2x4 lumber wedged between body and subframe and slide out the rack on the driver side. You first have to disconnect steering colum from inside the car. of course disconnect the ps hose and other rubber hose. and 4 bolts hold the rack to the subframe. then after removing the tires, the outter tire rods need to be removed from the knuckles. Do you have the new rack? does it have tie rods included. I know most remans you have to keep outter tie rods from the old one.
pretty easy with crow bar. put car on jack stand, perhaps under lower control arms. set ebrake. make sure ground is level. losen front subframe bolts about an inch and remove rear subframe bolts. You should be able to pry on back of subframe, put an old large socket or piece of 2x4 lumber wedged between body and subframe and slide out the rack on the driver side. You first have to disconnect steering colum from inside the car. of course disconnect the ps hose and other rubber hose. and 4 bolts hold the rack to the subframe. then after removing the tires, the outter tire rods need to be removed from the knuckles. Do you have the new rack? does it have tie rods included. I know most remans you have to keep outter tie rods from the old one.
Your instructions are the best. Replaced my rack and pinion this weekend and it took 3 hours with help. Ran in to a problem on connecting the outer tie rods; alignment is off quite a bit. We didn't have time to resolve the issue until this friday. What did we do wrong? Put the outer tie rod ends on using the same number of revolutions. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
on the TSX we didn't have to remove the steering wheel. but, you have to tie what I call the fork with a string. Autozone also had great direction @ the website. We pretty much follow the directions by user "invalidalias" and was a breeze! good luck.
Hello! I will be attempting to change the rack and pinion on my wife's 04 TSX following invalidalias instructions. Any I should know other than what is already here?
in i found the info below and makes the job sound very intimidating.
Summary of steps (only major steps listed):
-drain PS fluid
-remove front tires
-remove steering wheel
-disconnect steering joint
-remove front strut bar
-support engine
-disconnect various PS lines
-drop the sub-frame
-ease out the rack towards driver's side
I finally got the rack and pinion steering assembly replaced on my 2005 Acura TSX, but there were more troublesome removal and installation issues than I'm used to, even if I've never done a rack before. I was following a similar procedure leaving out the middle third detailed nicely in a TSB (search for: TSB b10-025PDF.pdf which I found on Google). It called for unknown special tools and brackets, for which I mostly worked out my own. The AutoZone instructions are really lame - the equivalent of "remove steering column"; generic, and wrong. Contrary to what some people say, there's no removing of steering wheel or column. You just disconnect the shaft from the pinion of the gear box, but do it a certain way. There were various nuts and bolts that were difficult to access (odd combinations of extensions, flexible joints, fingers 1/2" too short) and mis-applied torque because the socket could barely be squared on the bolt. A lot of the usual stuff you run into working on a car.
The original problem went from dripping about a bottle of (Honda) power steering fluid every month or two to a sudden loss of power steering. On checking it, I found the fluid was now just pouring out the driver's side boot of the steering gear. I guess a slow leak finally gave way to a full-scale seal blow-out. The car had been driven about 20 miles before it got to my driveway and I had some concerns that the virtually-empty power steering pump may have been damaged too, but since have found no evidence of damage.
One Acura dealer wanted $2,000 to replace the rack and a Honda dealer would replace the rack, pump, and hoses for $4,000. I didn't really need any more motivation to try replacing this myself (except for the time). An independent mechanic would do the labor for $400 but while he did a lot of Toyota racks, he didn't seem to experienced on Hondas, let alone Acuras. With no warranty, especially if the new rack leaked immediately, I thought that was a bit risky I could do that good!
Nobody seemed to have a replacement rack in town. None of the dealers even had one. The parts stores didn't have one, or the one their computer said they had well, no, they didn't actually have it when you were standing in front of them. Finally, an Advance Auto Parts guy found one 10 miles away at the Car Quest store that was just being merged with Advance. I rushed over and bought that remanufactured rack for about $400. I used the old tie rods; thought of buying new ones, but these were flexible yet not wobbly; and it's so easy to change when the need arises, why bother now.
Taking out the strut brace near the firewall was a bit tricky, but not as difficult as putting it back in. It seemed like the firewall and the struts had flexed apart while the bracket was gone (2-3 days) and the car variously up on oddly-placed jacks and no wheels on ground (that is, normal support and weight distribution). The first couple times the brace wouldn't reach between struts studs and firewall/tray holes. Eventually I got it in by starting with the studs up at the firewall and then jiggling things to the strut studs. This was after putting the wheels back on and letting the car stand on the ground 4+ hours (maybe to squeeze the space closer together, or something), and removing a little more stuff from around the brace (like a cruise control (?) box and wiring/fuse box).
I never understood why I had to support the engine (but did it anyway difficult). Dropping the subframe seemed mostly ineffective. I never did get what seemed like the requested 1-3/16" lowering which may have ultimately caused / contributed to my ultimate problem. Not knowing what was weighing down the subframe (engine? What else?), not being sure how much bolt was needed still screwed in to rely on their ability to hold the subframe up, not even knowing why I needed to lower the subframe; and certainly not wanting to crawl under a loosened subframe that might fall on me all made this difficult.
I finally made the rig of a section of 4"x6" beam with a couple 2"x4"s on the subframe all distributed on a 1/2" steel plate about 6"x12" that I happened to have around that I placed between beam and jack (see photo).
subframe support with floor jack
I then carefully backed the subframe's two main front and two rear bolts out all the way to see how long they really were and to estimate how much frame and nut they went into so I knew when I would be backing them out of their threading, losing their maximum holding power. I finally put the 4 corner bolts back in just enough to have a full grip on the threads, and left my jack rigging up to the subframe (at the lowered level) to hold it even if the bolts decided to let go. (ref: quip as to why the fireman wears belt and suspenders)
The biggest problem I had, and the cause for my earlier request on this blog (I mistakenly put it on the TL blog), was even though everything was loose, I just couldn't rotate and slide the freed-up rack out of the channel it was in, under the rear engine mount and restricted by power steering pipes and brake lines and body panels. Particularly, at the steering gear box, the rear attach point was captured in a bracket that was not removable (the front bolt's bracket was removable), and you just couldn't move the rack the 1-1/2" to the side or front to clear the bracket ("lip" in photo). After struggling with it for about 2 hours and doing about all I could to lower the subframe (above), I gave up and left it all alone for 24 hours in frustration.
tricky dance of rack removal
When I went back to it finally, after clearing my mind and taking a new approach, I had moved the rack enough to the left to clear its mounts, pressed the brake lines aside enough without nicking or bending them, and carefully walked the steering pinion shaft through the brake lines to rotate the whole rack counter-clockwise, stair-stepping to dance around frame members, brackets, and supports, so the shaft would be lined up with the cutout / clearance in the wheel well; and it slid out the side with relative ease all within 10 minutes. No, the wife didn't appreciate my odd joy in this little success. I made notes on a photo of what is where and problem areas with my solutions.
After removing the rack, the replacement was fairly typical. Some difficulty figuring out which bolts go where (so many different lengths, someone before may have used new/different bolts on the other side), there's no room for the torque wrench, where's that socket gone to I spent a couple hours on that strut brace, thinking many times just to leave it off, but didn't want the car to fold when it hit a bump some time.
In the end, all was well, the steering is very smooth and the steering wheel is level and no leaks! I paid someone $80 to align it properly but I think he barely made any change I had counted the tie-rod turns and eyeballed it carefully enough. BTW, the car has 175K miles on it. Possibly the first rack replacement for it.
03-22-2011, 07:42 AM
