leaking steering rack advice needed please?
 

I have a power steering leak and it has caused an mot failure. It appears to be coming from underneath the car but I dont know if it is the rack or not. It is a unit that has some pipes coming out of it and these are quite wet. The leak isnt coming from the reservoir area it is definately below.

If this part is the rack, how easy/hard are they to change?

cheers

Is the Unit leaking ?? Or is it just where the pipes enter the rack, Check that they are tight & not cross threaded Etc causing the leak !!

Dean

cheers Dean, I have a feeling it could be the pipes as the unit is actually very shiny and new like condition so may have been changed before I got it(circa 2 yrs ago)

Are you okay using ptfe tape on the threads as well as an extra sealing precaution?

Yep. PTFE will be fine, I cannot remember if the pipes have swaged ends or Olives, Either can get damaged if treated roughly during assemble or dissasemble Etc.

Best of luck.

Dean

it looks like the long pipe has been cross threaded into the rack. Problem is I managed to get a spanner on it (12mm with a slight cutout to go over the pipe) however the nut is jammed tight andit was begining to round off.
anyone any ideas how to remove / loosen this up without removing suspension//steering components?

In the meantime I drained the power steering fluid, and dried everything up where the leak was, left it for a while and then checked to make sure it was clean and dry and then added some gasket sealant there so hopefully that will get me through the mot tomorrow, but it needs changing.