About a year ago, my spindle, axle, tie rod and lower ball joint on the driver side of my 96 accord ex sedan snapped. The car hit the road and tore the driver side boot of the rack and pinion. All of the above mentioned parts have been replaced as of May 2010. For the past couple of weeks, I have been noticing a popping sound when I make left hand turns and u turns to the left. I was thinking that it's the axle since I got it from a Honda Only wrecking yard. Both sides of the axle looked serviceable and there weren't any torn boots or damaged collars. A friend of mine had inspected my axle and noted that it was still in good shape. However, he couldn't approximate how much longer it would be in service. He also inspected the driver side rack and pinion boot and suggested in purchasing the boot instead of the whole unit. I am in a financial bind and can't afford to buy the entire unit. What are your thoughts. Is this part even available for purchase? The boot only. Thanks.

 

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Buy you a boot for it, its under 10$. And if your any good with cars it shouldnt take you more than 1-2 hrs to fix. I did both of mine.

 

What type of grease should be used inside the boot? It's gotten road grime and dirt from the past 18 months? I'm hoping that the end of the tie rod or the inside of the rack didn't get damaged.

 

It's probably beyond simple boot replacement. As soon as a boot is ripped or begins to check, replace it. That grit and grime has scored the components inside the rack. The rack is lubricated by the PS fluid.
You can try and save the rack with a new boot, but if the rack is popping its most likely toast.

 

Yes the rack is popping but only when making left hand u turns. I was hoping it wasn't that bad. Is it a good idea to get a jy or reman unit? Can't afford the $1k retail prices. LOL

 

Since when do tie-rods even make noise? The only thing that makes noise is the axle since it's constantly spinning and is easily damaged from lack of grease. The tie-rod barely moves only when you turn the wheel and it's not even constantly spinning.

If you're really in a bind, you can always just buy a cheap *** split boot with a set of grease stick to throw around the axle if the boot gets broken and you don't really feel like A) taking it apart and B) spending money to buy another axle.

 

You only replace the rack-N-pinion if it's leaking P/S fluid. Otherwise, just get the Bellow's Boot from Honda. It's cheap.

 

I have inspected the boots on both sides of the axle on the driver side. As far as I can tell, there is no tearing of either boot. The boot to the rack is shredded to pieces when the spindle snapped and dropped the entire driver side of the car onto the freeway back in 2010. When I had it serviced, the axle and spindle were purchased at a JY. The tie rod and the lower ball joint were purchased new. I chose this route because I couldn't afford to pay for a new spindle since it was broke cleanly. My friend believes it's the axle, but I'm concerned about damaging the rack since the boot is shredded and never got around to servicing it until now. I am trying to avoid another disaster in the future. As I'm typing, I only heard a "popping" once and that was a week ago while making a left hand u turn. Since then, it hasn't repeated.

 

Can you define "rack". I don't think I'm interpreting the same as you.

 

I'm referring to the rack between the inner tie rod ends. Not the steering assembly.

 

Did further investigating. I have figured out that the noises aren't coming from the rack at all. Instead, bad driver side strut. I will be replacing the boot soon and then getting an alignment. Thanks for the info.

 

Steering assembly and the rack between the inner tie rods are the same thing. You're making a bigger deal about this than it really is. The boots are like ten bucks each and take 5 minutes to change, why not change them and be done with it?