'98 Explorer Limited 5.0 . I haven't noticed any trouble in steering the car but it is leaking. I got under it and it seems that it's a steel line that goes from the passenger side top of the rack to the drivers side. But it's not connected to the rack at the drivers side end of the rack. It looks like it should slide into something but I can't figure it out. There is no fitting on the end. Very tight area to view or work on. Can anyone help me understand where that line goes and how I can re connect it? Thanks in advance.

 

That sounds like the vent tube that goes between the bellows on the rack so as you turn the steering wheel, the bellow on one side needs to collapse while the opposite bellow needs to expand. There should be a little port on both bellows for the tube.

Unfortunately, there should not be fluid flowing through this tube, only air. If there is fluid in there, your rack is leaking and that may be why the tube came out, there was too much fluid trying to flow through there.

-Rod

 

Thanks Shorod, I got under there this morning. I watched about an hour of you tube on rack replacement last night. The boot had slid off but I didn't get any fluid out of the boot. The manifold where all the hard lines connect to the rack is saturated with fluid, so maybe its just the fittings? If it remains a slow leak I might try to drive it till summer. When I do it I'll post again. Thanks.

 

The leak got real bad and I had to do something. Turns out the high pressure line at the rack was rusted through. I think I was VERY lucky to start the threads going into the rack. I used a long needle nose to start and a #12 crows foot to tighten it up......I also had the right rear leaking gear oil. I had put new wheel bearings in @98k and it has 183k now. Turns out the right axle was trashed and the left looked too iffy to put back in so I replaced both along with the bearings and seals....Also found a cut or melted through air line to the RR shock.( it could have happened with a bad tail pipe hitting the line..or the muffler replacement guy did it!) Any way, it was also a nightmare. I had to remove the shock and drill out the plastic pipe. I had the shock wired but the wire broke and I had a real bad time getting it compressed again. I forgot how I used to do that,lol. ..anyway,everything is back together and seems to be ok....I think if someone was fiming me I could get a few laughs on you tube..lol.

 

Wow, sounds like you got a lot of issues resolved in one (probably long) repair session! Congratulations on the fix, and thank you for posting a follow-up on what you found.

-Rod

 

And we would not be laughing at you.... just with you.....we have all had those moments.... Philip