Provident Engineering: Rack & Pinion Replacement on a 1998 Camry

The rack & pinion was leaking on both sides and the passenger inner tie rod had play, so it was best to replace the whole rack & pinion assembly. I estimated that I could complete the job in a day and it actually went as expected, except that the included pamphlet said the job would take 2-4 hours. It took me eight hours.

Before starting, I remembered a problem I had on several previous jobs. I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but when you're sitting on the ground working on the car, sometimes you can wear the skin on your tailbone. You don't notice until you're in the shower the next day and it's a little too sensitive. I was careful to avoid that problem this time.

Here's a time-lapse of the entire repair.

There were only a couple things in the way that needed to be removed to get the rack & pinion assembly out.

I had to remove the oxygen sensor. It sounds simple, but this took some time. Why do they make these electrical connectors so difficult to remove? They're in super awkward places so you can either see it or feel it, but often not at the same time. You need super-human strength to press the button enough to release the catch. So I just used a small slotted screwdriver on the opposite side of the button to release the catch and pulled on the wires (bad, I know) and it came right out, wires still intact.

I removed the bolts holding the sway bar mounts on both sides. This should be fairly simple, but there isn't enough room for a socket - just enough room for a box wrench, turning 1/12 of a turn at a time on the back bolts.

There's a nut holding the power steering hose to the rack on the passenger side. Here's a photo of that hose and bracket with the rack already removed.

Getting the hoses loosened wasn't too hard. A 17mm crow's foot on a long extension made it pretty easy.

The inner tie rods weren't hard to remove from the outer tie rod ends. On cars this old, they could be too stuck to remove and you'd need outer tie rods also. Here's a photo of the outer tie rod end still attached to the wheel knuckle. (Rack & pinion already removed)

The most troublesome part of the job was disconnecting the steering shaft. I had to slide the rack toward the passenger side to get it apart or back together. I used a couple ball joint separator wedges to pop it off. The steering linkage seemed to be spring-loaded. Maybe there was something I should have disconnected on the inside to make it easier. But it's done now.

At this point with the steering disconnected, I made sure to keep the steering wheel centered so that the clock spring in the steering wheel wouldn't get hyper-extended. The wheel should only go one and a half turns from center to either side. Much more than that could possibly damage the clock spring. You'll know if the horn or other buttons on the steering wheel stop working.

I tilted the rack towards the front of the car and slid it out the driver's side. Here's the new one going in the same way.

Once I re-connected the steering shaft, I checked if the steering was centered. Of course it wasn't and I had to disconnect the shaft and re-adjust a couple times until it was one and a half turns from center either direction.

Flush

I connected an extension hose to the return line and capped the return line on the reservoir. I filled the reservoir and had my assistant (ok my daughter) run the engine for about two seconds to get some air out. I then had my assistant turn the wheel all the way both directions to get more air out, all while adding fluid as necessary to the reservoir. After flushing and re-connecting the return line, we didn't have a problem with air in the fluid.