lxk199

so im taking out my PS pump and lines because they are leaky and I can't seem to find a cheap manual rack. Should I cap the lines? should I plug the fittings on the rack itself? Anyone have some relatively detailed info on how to do this? I know its not going to be like having a manual rack, but I can't really see spending $100-200 on a used manual rack for a car with 220k miles. I'd rather just remove the defective parts. I already have the pump out, but the lines are still just chillaxin'.



In conclusion, where should I cap the lines/plug the rack?

toplessFC3Sman

Ive heard of someone just connecting the lines from either side of the rack to each other and leaving that little loop filled with fluid. I still have my power steering sys hooked up tho, so i cant tell u from personal experience

Jonlax

loop the lines. It keeps the rack lubed so you do not have any problems down the road

lxk199

I assume you mean the main lines? Obviously I want to get rid of as much line as possible to clean up the engine bay. How far down can I get rid of them?

jefraney

I had mine looped for a while and I did not like it. I just took off the loop and ran it. So far so good. But, I agree that you should not do that, I just dont care because I dont use the car much. I am planning on converting the rack though this weekend.



There was a pretty cool write up about converting a miata power rack to a manual rack. I cant seem to find it, but you basically take the entire thing apart, weld the holes, pack it with grease, then reassemble.



I will try to find it again.

lxk199

I remember someone mentioning disassembling the rack and packing it, I just don't have the place to do that right now. I have to keep the car looking assembled and no wheels off in the parking lot, so I'm going to have to loop the line. What didn't you like about it?

wankelTII

buy a tee fitting and get a little reservoir of some sort that has a cap and hook it to the top of the tee and hook the 2 main power steering lines to either side of the tee. I am assuming you have an s4, so you will need to cap the small line off completely. You want to use just regular powersteering fluid and if your connections arent good it will leak, so do it right!

This is the best way i know of to convert power to manual and i am speaking from experience. Cutting the seal and greasing the inside of the rack can require regreasing later and can still cause the rack to wear out, it was designed for pwr steering fluid as a lubricant, so just use that. Its very easy to turn this way, i dont know how you could turn it at all if you just capped the lines. The only thing i can think of that might be better is if you cut the seal inside the rack and capped one line and used the other line with some sort of reservoir to still fill the rack with pwr steering fluid.



I have a manual rack that i will sell for $100 plus shipping, but i think the pwr steering rack converted to manual is better, because you have better ratios, it only takes like 3 turns to go from lock to lock in most cars with pwr steering and it takes 4 with the manual rack. Or something like that i dont remember exactly.

jefraney

To me, it felt harder to turn than the manual rack.



The reservoir is the best thing to do. It will keep both sides of the seal with the correct amount of fluid and it will allow the pressure to escape quicker.



wankelTII, the lock to lock ratio is exactly why I kept the PS rack.

lxk199

OK for now I just have the lines looped, until I can find an appropriate reservoir to tee into. It is definitely harder than my TII with manual rack. I had forgotten how hard it was! I removed all the lines including up front where they loop in front of the radiator for cooling. I will buy new line when I go to tee it in, and make a bracket where the lines originally mounted, to give it a nice clean appearance.



WankelTII - do you have a pic of your reservoir setup? I am just wondering how the pressure is released from the reservoir so as to make the wheel easier to turn, because with the lines just looped, in some spots it gets EXTREMELY hard to turn.

wankelTII

when you fill it, jack the front of the car up enough to take most of the weight off of the tires and leave the reservoir cap off. Turn the wheel back and forth, lock to lock, have someone watch the fluid and keep doing it until all the bubbles are out of the system and dont let the fluid level get too low. Be careful and do this slow at first, make sure it isnt going to send fluid everywhere.



I dont have pics and i cant really get any because i dont have that particular car anymore, but i am looking for another one now and that will be one of my first mods, so i will post pics when i can. It seemed fairly easy to steer to me, but i cant really say how it compares to a manual rack, i have driven both, but never in a small enough time frame to make any real comparison.