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My steering rack's developed a slow leak from the pinion area and I'd like to try to rebuild it before digging around for a matching sport rack replacement. Does anyone know if there are rebuild kits available for these? Or if it's even possible to DIY? I'd rather know ahead of time instead of risking disassembling something that won't go back together again, or doing R+I twice; once to get the O-ring dimensions and type, and again to replace it.
Of course, I was at a junkyard earlier today and forgot to try and pull the pinion off the XJ8 there to look around inside. Although it might have already had the rack taken out...
I might give that rebuild kit a shot, will need to dig around in the XK docs to see if it interchanges, or looks similar enough. The XJ8 racks are a different PN from the XJR, I think the steering ratio is different. So while it'd work if I needed it for driveability, I want to keep the steering feel the same as what's on there.
Using the Ebay rebuild kit linked earlier, the XK8 x100 service manual (which actually covers this procedure somewhat, while the x308 manual doesn't), and some mechanical intuition, I was able to solve the leak. Replacing the pinion housing top seal fixed it, and I replaced the pinion housing to rack body O ring at the same time since it was easily accessible. Didn't touch any other seals.
I had a nice procedure all written out, but then the text editor bugged out when I tried to upload photos, and I lost my entire post. I'll try to rewrite it later if anyone wants it.
I didn't think to read the lettering off the old pinion seal, but the one in the kit had labeling "PT10C 20 30 5 6 KOK 8453 7"
Photos:
Pinion body removed
Suspected cause of the leak
Old seal on top, new seal on bottom. Noticeably larger ID on the old seal, probably from wear
New seal installed. Easy to press the old one out, and new one in with appropriately sized sockets
Replaced the pinion body to steering rack O ring while everything was apart, just to be safe
I've done one complete steering rack seal overhaul. Replaced every seals including every nylon ring seals. Those white ones in the last picture. Rack wasn't ZF or Jaguar but they are not that different. Every seal came out pretty easily. But putting nylon ones back is the thing. With them you should use correct inside diameter sleeve to squish nylon ring outer diameter to correct size. This made a snifigant issue to couple of hours. But I managed to assemble the rack back togerher. And it has been leak free and fully working two years now. So it can be done DIY.
Great work on the rebuild! How were you able to get it free of the steering shaft pinion? I still haven't been able to get past it being seized there...
Great work on the rebuild! How were you able to get it free of the steering shaft pinion? I still haven't been able to get past it being seized there...
The pinch bolt needs to be completely removed to take the lower column off the pinion (I'm assuming you've already done this, saying more for anyone else reading). Sometimes you can pry into the pinch to spread it apart and loosen things up a bit. I ended up trying that, along with some aggressive hammering around to try and drive the clamp off with prybars (probably what caused the leak in the first place).
After I was able to get it off the first time, I put a light coat of assembly grease onto the splines, being very careful not to put an excessive amount that could squeeze onto the pinch bolt. That way in the future the parts wouldn't seize to each other. Made the disassembly this time much easier, once I remembered the bolt has to come out completely.
Steering rack rebuild
