How to change steering rack boots

[Moony187]

Just recently changed my wheels and decided to check out the breaks and ball joints etc while they were off and noticed that the offside steering rack boot has split.

Does anyone know how to change these and if so, if it would be simple enough to do? Any help would be appreciated, thanks

 

[Ryan-EK9]

Pretty simple to do, the only thing to mention is that you mite nock the tracking out because you have to remove the track rod end.

Remove the wheel, then loosen the tie rod locking nut. If it hasn't been off before then it's probebly going to be tight. Use WD40 or heat to loosen the nut. To minimise the chance of altertering the tracking, grab the tie rod with mole grips and keep it still while loosening the tie rod locking nut. It only needs to loosend off by a 1/4 of a turn.

Once the locking nut is loose, remove the track rod end nut, again this can be tight too so use WD40 or heat again. Once it's off, use a hammer and hit the hub surrounding the track rod end to loosen it off. Once that's off, count the turns when removing the track rod end, this again minimises the change of nocking out the tracking. Remove the tie rod locking nut then remove the clips holding the steering rack boot, then just pull it off. Replace the boot and work in reverse on how you took it off.

Abit long i know lol, hope it helps.

 

[Moony187]

Thanks for the help mate. Seems to be quite straight forward. I'll give this a go ASAP and let you know how I get on.

 

[Ryan-EK9]

No probs mate, it is pretty straight forward, just the bolts can be stubborn sometimes.

 

[Mako Dc2]

its not straight forward you can run into a few problems

as ryan said the track rod end nut can be tight if it hasent be removed in a while

if you heat hub carrier you can melt/burn the t.rod end rubber seal so be very carefull

also clean the t.rod end threads with a wire brush this will stop the complete balljoint from spinning when losening the nut , if it does start to spin you will need a jack or a long pray bar to hold the pressure to remove the nut

 

[Moony187]

Thanks a lot guys. Managed to get it done. Only problem I ran into was a siezed track rod end locking nut. Such a bitch. Got it heated up and everything else went ok from there on. The old boot was awkward to take off as there was only a small gap into where it sat.
After I got that off the new boot went on and again, was awkward to put on because of the small gap but apart from that it went on and everything went back on in a matter of minutes.