i just brought a prelude and im the 3rd owner of it the first owner removed all of the powerstearing stuff and im now in the procees of buy everything thats needed to get the powerstearing back on.
before i do this i want to know if theres a way that i can see if he might of swaped the original rack and pinion for a manual one.
98 prelude

 

i don't know which side to inspect it from is, but just look under your intake manifold and look at he steering rack, if it is power steering it will have 1-2 thick hard lines going into it, if it is manual, it will have no lines going to it.

 

a manual rack will look like this...straight across, no sensors or available feeds for power steering fluid



power rack..

 

I don't think any 92-01 Preludes had manual power steering. I would love an OEM manual rack, but have never been able to find one for a Prelude or Accord from those years.

 

ok thanks for the pictures that helped alot
ill check it out tomoorow when its daylight

 

If it was manual, you would have no hydro lines on the rack/rack body. Just as in the pictures. If it has lines and they were removed then it had power steering. Don't know if that is good for the rack or not.