Steering Rack rebuild
 

Are 1999 E320 steering racks rebuildable by us mere mortals?
w/EVO rack is quite leaky so can I save bunches of money by finding a rebuild kit or am I better off going the reman route?
If so, has anyone heard of CarSteering.com?
They offer a 3 year warranty and claim to be the actual reman factory.
Warranty looks pretty decent and they offer a $12 core ship-back label.
Of course there is Pelican with Maval & others with Cardone.

What is the skinny on the various reman units?

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance

I don't have experience with this outfit, but at least you can get an idea of price:

Rack & Pinion Catalog - mercedes

re sealing a rack is not too hard - the biggest problem is making some tools to get the bulkhead piston seals out and back in.

then there is the actual rack teeth etc, need to replace if worn.

the spool valve where the pinion goes has teflon rings like automatic transmissions which are not too bad to work with.

the cost of tooling and headache and lack of available spares makes this a futile exercise - If you open your rack and its just a seal job then you won the game, otherwise you lost. Best get a reliable rebuilt for plug and play.

As usual - flush out the whole system with fresh PSF or ATF and do the bleed correctly to ensure good quiet operation.

Thanks, as I feared, yes, the side seals are leaking, copiously (drivers side more than passenger, but both nonetheless.
I don't think the rack teeth are worn, it feels tight, no play, but when I popped off the boots, about 6 ozs. of dirty looking fluid dropped out of the driver's side and maybe 2-3 ozs out of the pass. side.
So I'm looking at about $300-500 after the core is returned?

I am going to get burned for this but I have to say it. In our shop, we always tried Lucas power steering stop leak. We used it for both external and Internal leaks (internal caused Morning sickness). At least 80 percent of the time, it worked and some would last for years. Some only cost money. Once you are ready to pull the trigger, this is a cheap test. It may or may not work. We never saw it cause a problem or make a problem worse.

NO, I do not work for Lucas. I don't own stock in Lucas.

PaulM

It works if the system has not grenaded itself internally.

Good to know. I too have a rack leak in my E430. I can get a reman for $185CDN, which is not bad but if I can fix with Lucas then that's a bonus.