It's nowhere near perfect, I'll need clarification on some things, and torque specs checked, etc. Some of my torque specs are more than likely wrong. I did this mostly from memory, with checking of the manual. I couldn't find everything this time around though.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN: Please make sure that at all times the rack is no longer connected to the steering column you have the steering wheel in a fixed position. Bungee cord it to the door, the handbrake, or something. Failure to do so will result in the clock spring unwinding itself, and attempting to turn the steering wheel in this condition will result in its breakage and failure of the SRS system. That could lead to fatal injuries, so don't be stupid/lazy, please.
You'll need:
Adjustable wrench (big enough to get a bit bigger than 22mm)
22mm wrench
19mm socket (6 sided so you don't strip the nuts on the exhaust and have the hassle I did)
19mm wrench
17mm socket
17mm wrench
17mm line wrench
14mm socket
14mm wrench
12mm line wrench (I believe it's 12, maybe 11, I can't understand what I wrote, line wrench sets will have both
sides, somebody post the correct size please)
12mm socket
12mm wrench
10mm socket
long extension for the DP nuts
Ratchet for the sockets/extension
Big wrench/socket for the axle nuts (I forget which size, I used an Imperial sized wrench/socket, 1.5" rings a bell, but I don't remember, and I don't have a record of it)
That's what I used, you might need more or less. I may have missed other tools, post up if you needed anything extra. I'll apologize in advance for this being not 100%
Jack the car up, preferably all 4 corners, set the jackstands fairly high up to give you room. Remove the front two wheels.
Remove the downpipe. All 19mm on a stock exhaust, use the extension, it's impossible without it. Undo the two nuts on the front flange, and the two on the rear flange. I didn't worry about removing it from the cat, I kinda wish I had, it was a pain to work around the downpipe, and I destroyed my flex section.
AWD Only: Remove the transfer case. 5 bolts, all 17mm. You'll probably need the extension for this too, unless you have a deep socket.
Disconnect the out tie rod ends now, they're much harder to do with the knuckle dangling. 17mm nuts with cotter
pins. There's a few ways to get them to pop out of the knuckle. I took the nuts off, flipped them over so the castle was facing down, threaded them on to protect the threds and hit the top with a hammer. Mine popped right out, you may need to use a tie rod puller to get them out. You'll need new boots on the tie rod ends if you're going to re-use the old ones (very bad idea). At this time, measure and record the distances from the inside edge of the tie rod ends to the machined boot indents on the tie rod. It should get you close enough to drive it to get it aligned.
Next you're going to want to remove the driver's side axle (not completely necessary, but it makes the job a lot easier, and you'll need an alignment anyway) Start by removing the cotter pin in the axle nut, grab the big wrench, and remove the nut. Remove the ABS line bolt (10mm, I believe). Remove the caliper (17mm bolts), and hang it on a bent metal clothes hanger from the spring. Go back under the car, unbolt the intermediate shaft hanger (14mm?). Mark the position of the upper camber bolt so you can put it back as close as possible. Remove the two camber bolts through the knuckle and strut (17mm). Push the axle back through the hub, you'll probably need to
remove the intermediate shaft hanger from it's two guide pins at this point, and be careful not to move the intermediate shaft around inside the transmission, it will destroy the seal. Carefully pull the intermediate shaft assembly out of the transmission. It should slide right out. Wrap up the splines in a paper towel, you don't want to damage it. Set aside.
Remove the lower splash shield that covers the crank pulley, it gets in the way later.
Unbolt and remove the driver's side frame member. Two up front and three farther back, two recessed in holes.
Unbolt the passenger side frame member and remove it. There's a lot more bolts on this side, all the bolts facing downwards are the same size, there's two 12mm bolts in the clutch vac assist/little skidplate doohickey that face upwards, they're not easy to get to. If you still have the front Active Aero, you'll need to remove a bunch of 12mm bolts to be able to get it out of the way.
Unbolt the endlinks on the swaybar. I don't remember the size, but 17mm sounds right. You'll need a wrench and a socket.
Unbolt the swaybar mounts. 14mm? bolts. Lower the swaybar out of the way.
Check the distance on the tie rod ends again, you need it to be pretty close.
Either remove the old tie rod ends to get the locking nuts for the new rack, or use appropriate nuts on the new rack. The factory nuts are 22mm. If you're using the old nuts, there's no specific size for the square end of the tie rod end that I know of. I used an adjustable wrench, and held the tie rod on the ground with my feet, and backed off the 22mm nut with a wrench, using the adjustable wrench held on the floor by my weight on the tie rod.
There's also wrench flats on the tie rods, you'll need a wrench on those as well. One of my new racks had thicker wrench flats on the tie rods, so I won't give you a size, try a wrench.
Attach the new tie rod ends, making sure to install the nut first. Spin the nut close to the end of the threads to give you room to adjust the tie rod end. Spin the new tie rod ends on until the distance between the end of the boot groove and the tie rod end measures very close to what the old one did. Tighten the nut down to the tie rod end, locking it in place. It doesn't need to be superhuman tight, but tight enough it won't fall apart on the road. Use your judgement.
Center the steering wheel and find a way to keep it centered. A bungee cord through the wheel and around the door handle worked well for me.
Disconnect all the power steering lines, be prepared for a huge mess. Try to catch as much as you can in a catch basin, it smells bad and burns your skin and eyes. Tastes pretty bad too. There's different sizes for the lines,
this is where you use the line wrenches. DO NOT USE ANYTHING EXCEPT A LINE WRENCH. I REPEAT, DO NOT USE ANYTHING EXCEPT A LINE WRENCH. You will strip the nuts, and then you're fairly well screwed. You will be using a 17mm line wrench, and the smaller line wrench. To reach the two lines on the column connection/pinion shaft, reach up through the hole you left by removing the axle. The farther forward connection on the column lines is the smaller one, the rear is the 17mm. These two connections have O-Rings, they need replaced. My remanufactured rack had them included. They're factory parts. You can order them from the dealer if your rack didn't come with them. If you have AWS, you decide the best way to disconnect the lines for you. I had a conenction I couldn't undo without fear of destroying the nuts, so I chose to do it in a way that wasn't exactly ideal. When you disconnect the AWS lines, plug them with a proper plug, it will make bleeding the AWS system much harder if you don't.
Remove the 4 bolts holding the U-Shaped mounts for the rack, and support the rack with a box or jack.
Reach up in the hole by the 2 main PS lines, and push the rubber boot off of the steering column bolt. You'll be doing this mostly by feel, so be prepared and don't get frustrated. The bolt is a 12mm bolt, it may or may not be
really tight. It shouldn't be extremely tight.
Very carefully pull the rack out of the steering column, making sure not to damage the splines on the rack on the subframe.
Push the rack towards the passenger side, and drop the driver's side out through the bottom of the car and pull the rack out. It's heavy and awkward. This is why you jacked the car up nice and high. Ideally you want to make sure the tie rods don't move in or out of the rack, but don't worry too much if they don't, you'll fix it later.
AWS: Depending on how you removed the AWS lines, you may or may not have a step here. If you left all the hardlines on the car, you don't have a step here. If you took the hardlines with the rack, and disconnected them from the rubber lines, you need to reconnect these on the new rack. Torque spec is 11ft-lbs. Doesn't need to be tight to seal correctly. Make sure to clean the ends of the lines well before installation. You don't want to do it all again to fix a leak.
Swap the rubber mount pieces over to the new rack. The main rubber piece is keyed, make sure to line it up correctly. If you have AWS, make sure to line up the rubber mount with two grooves correctly to put the AWS lines through.
Now is a good time to center the new rack, to try and make it easier on yourself later. Grab a pair of Channel Locks (or another wrench), wrap the teeth in rubber bands to protect the splines on the pinion shaft, and turn the rack all the way left, then all the way right, counting the turns. Divide the total turns in half, and turn the pinion shaft back to that point. That is approximately the middle of the steering travel.
Insert the new rack into the car, using either a jack to support or sheer muscle power. I got mad at the jack being unwieldy, so I exhausted myself holding it up there.
Attach the steering column, lining up the splines and pushing the rack gently upwards and backwards. Attach the driver's side rack mount loosely, just to hold the rack up. This is THE single most frustrating aspect of the entire job. The splines won't want to go together, and you'll have to do it multiple times because it will fight you.
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