After only 430,000 miles, it looks like the rack and pinion in my 93 Civic Si has failed. There was suddenly a lot of yellow power steering fluid on the garage floor and a strange sound which I am guessing is the power steering pump. I put it back in the garage. The fluid appears to have come out at the bellows where the rack meets the tie rod.

So, what is a good source for a power steering rack for a car this old? These don’t appear to be stocked at the dealer.

One other question. I am assuming it will have to be towed to repair? Otherwise, I am guessing I might damage the pump or other parts of the system.

Thanks.

 

Search RockAuto for steering racks. On my old 92 CX, I swapped in, and de-powered, a DC integra rack with no issues. These racks can be had for around $200 with the core. If you're interested in de-powering the rack the correct way, let me know and I'll walk you through it.

If your rack is just leaking badly (out of the shaft seals, it sounds like), for the time being you can remove the power steering belt and drive the car where it needs to be. Once the new rack is in, fill and bleed the system and you're good to go.

 

Thanks. Choices include AC Delco, BBB, Cardone, Maval. Any recommendations? I am the original owner and expect to keep the car.

 

I don't know much about BBB or Maval, but I can vouch for Cardone and AC Delco. If I remember correctly, I installed a Cardone (reman'd) in my EG. It worked perfectly while I owned the car. I sold the car back in the spring and, soon after, the car was totaled.

 

I got mine from https://rackdoctor.net/

No issues so far. They were a bit tough to communicate with... but considering there is no human to communicate with through Rockauto, that’s still an upgrade.

 

Thanks. I have ordered the Cardone version. Should get it next week. From the Youtube videos it doesn’t look that hard. Would have been $1200 to have it done at the shop. I think it will be about $300 if I do it.

 

Don't be fooled, give yourself plenty of time, it is not "hard" but there is a lot to take off, more than you think at times. Make sure you have flare wrenches along with the usual. PB Blaster on all the bolts the night before, such as exhaust, which helps to have out of the way.

Cardone version is what I replaced with before, seems fine.

 

I replaced this myself with a Cardone rack, which is an exact fit and pretty good. I had to order a tie rod puller, which removed the frozen one quite easily. Now I probably won’t use it again for decades.

Getting the old one out was a pain. I realized that I had watched a video for a slightly different model of Civic, an automatic, where mine is manual. I had to remove part of the exhaust and move it to the side. The floor jack was pretty useful for doing that. Then I had to remove the shift linkage at the transmission. Then it came out in about 5 minutes.

I aligned it myself and then went to the shop. Turns out I was pretty close.

 

Great job! Any pics of the adventure?

Also, don't be surprised if the level is a little low after a week of driving, I found I had to top it off once afterwards as I guess I ddin't get all the bubbles out.

 

I’m a little late to this, replace all off those little lines coming and going to the rack. They are cheap from the dealer and a lot easier to do while you’re in there, rather than going back when (not if!) they leak later.

 

I wish it had been easy to take pictures. This was the dirtiest, greasiest work I have ever done. Getting clean took quite a bit of time. Didn’t want to get the phonedirty.

 

Agreed. Leaky racks are just about the worst job I've done on these cars in 25 years of working on them.

 

Cardone is decent on remans. I've used them before.