I have recently changed out the steering gear on my 1991 350SD. Pretty straight forward job but somewhat messy. I've owned the car for 10 years and have documentation that the steering gear was changed out 50,000 miles ago. I'm surprised that this part would only last that long. I changed it out because it was leaking like a sieve. I'm wondering if anyone has ever fashioned any kind of protection for the column/coupling/gear area to protect it from the elements. At the angle it occupies, it seems as if water and crud would easily collect on the seal at the gear splined shaft and perhaps lead to it's premature demise. It would be easy to surround the whole affair with a rubber boot. Would this maybe prolong the new gear's life? Thanks in advance for your input and knowledge.

I have seen for this slip on boot is non-continuous. They always cut away after they start to slip the new boot onto the tie rod. The video skips and then suddenly the boot is over the the outer tie rod ball joint. A few similar videos indicated that it took hours to get it over that ball joint. snaptube vidmate