90Acura

I figured I'd put this info up for the benefit of someone down the road, since I only found one link that mentioned rusted lines, in a pretty extensive web search for power steering leaks. There's lots of info on leaking pumps, high pressure lines, and racks, but not rusted lines. I'm sure there's more northerners who have had or will have this problem, thanks to that lovely salt that they put on our roads.

Problem: White plastic clip above the rack secures 3 metal lines, holding moisture and causing them to rust under the clip until a hole forms in the line/s.
Solution: Remove and replace the leaking metal line/s. I could have simply cut the metal line at the rusted area and sleeved it with rubber hose, but the line really should be flared to help retain the rubber hose, if using factory spring type clamps. It would be difficult to flare the line ends after cutting the metal line while still installed in the car, and would definitely require screw type hose clamps if not flared. For a factory repair, a new metal line was bent to match the old line, with the original rack line fitting installed on the new line, and then flared.

The specific line that was leaking was pretty easy to find, as a slight flexing of the line by prying with a screwdriver caused the leak to really open up. The white plastic line securing clip can be easily unlatched, by prying the bottom latch open with a screwdriver. A portion of the clip can be seen above the sway bar, in the top of the first pic. The sheetmetal cover under the rack line fittings was removed next, to access the line fitting on the rack. Thanks to a bit of corrosion, the bolts holding the sheetmetal cover were now 3/8" english, instead of 10mm metric, but at least they rusted down to some standard size and came out without any problem.

Second pic shows where you can access the flexible hose clamp on the cross member behind the engine, by reaching your arm under the fuel line. This particular line was the one in the center of the clip that secures 3 metal lines, which connects to a plastic T connector on the cross member, with a short length of rubber hose on the end of the metal line.

Center of the 3rd pic shows the hole in the metal line, which really opened up after flexing the line a bit. This car is actually pretty clean for it's age in PA, but road salt does wonders for metal lines over time, especially when the lines are kept from drying out by clips.

Fouth pic is the new line bent to match the old rusted line. The line can be bent with reasonably sharp bends without kinking if worked carefully around a piece of wooden 2x4, since I don't have a small bending tool. The flaring tool was not only used for the line fitting end, but also a small flare was put on the rubber hose connector end (see pencil pointer). The factory also had a flare on the hose connector end, to keep the hose from sliding off. There must not be much pressure on the low pressure side, as the spring clamps keep the hose connections from leaking, but certainly aren't very tight. Without the flare on the line, the hose could easily come off. Seems to be staying dry now after a good Gunk cleaning, drive, and re-checking.