180sx: Steering rack rebuild

The steering rack on the 180 was leaking pretty badly and I was still waiting on some exhaust fab supplies so I decided to tackle rebuilding it on the weekend.

It was incredibly filthy I'm pretty sure I already degreased, scrubbed, hosed before taking this picture and repeated another 3 times after.

Clean enough I guess. I wish I had a soda blaster (who doesn't) as that would make cleaning up grimey parts a breeze.

First step was to drill out a rectangle punch before attempting to remove the end cap otherwise it'll destroy the threads. It just needed to be drilled enough till it exposed silver metal.

Then you just need to go get a 41mm socket which I didn't have lol. SCA down the road luckily did though.

Then I zapped it off with my big gun because why do things the hard way.

The pinion housing was held in with e10 bolts.

Which I also zapped off with the gun.

I got most the seals from Nissan but ordered a complete kit from Rock Auto just for the pinion teflon seals as Nissan discontinued them. This worked out because there was one other seal I forgot to order from nissan which the Rock Auto kit contained.

I was taking photos as I disassembled because I have the memory of a goldfish.

I marked the adjuster too though there's a sequence in the FSM for setting the torque on this after reassembly.

Measured it too to quickly set it again later. I'd probably recommend you do it the proper way though. It seemed okay after reassembly though but you should probably do it the right way if you do.

I used a chisel and hammer to help pop the shaft all the way out.

And just a flat head to pop this seal out.

I found these teflon seals the most challenging and daunting.

With a bit of stretching I got them on though.

O ring + Teflon seal and new side seal swapped on.

I watched a video where some guy spent hours making tools and struggling to get the other side seal out which sits against a metal bush. I had a look inside the rack and figured I could just tap it out with a socket and some extensions. I found a 18mm socket that fit perfectly and lubed it up with ATF then tapped out the seal along with the bush in seconds.

Since everything was now out I gave the inside of the rack a clean then lubed the inside with ATF and the new bush just dropped in.

Popped out the seal and bearing. This was one of the places the rack was leaking from originally along with the side seals.

New seal in. This was the seal I forgot to order from Nissan but luckily the Rock Auto kit had it.

Bearing tapped back in.

Second side seal popped onto the shaft ready to go back into the rack housing.

I tapped the shaft in till the seal bottomed out on the metal bush. I then gunned the end cap back on and chiseled in a new dimple. I also blocked both the ports with my finger to test if the rack seals were holding pressure as the shaft will return after compressing if everything is okay.

Greased up the inside of the rack and the teeth before refitting the pinion. Upper portion was lubed with ATF before the housing went back on top. I actually torqued the e10 bolts though instead of just rattle gunning it.

Adjuster and lines back on. Ready to go back into the car.

Actually first I needed to weld the captive nut back on for the steering rack bracket as it had broken off somehow.

Easy job luckily with the tig. Coat of paint over the areas I ground back just to be safe.

And all back in. I put some fluid into the reservoir and turned it lock to lock a few times but I guess I won't know if it'll be leak free until the car is running so the pump can pressurise the system. I got some replacement boots from febest too as the old boots were pretty wrecked and grimey from the leaks.

Hopefully the rest of the stuff for my exhaust finally arrives next week so I can get the exhaust done and start the car up again.

Update: No Bueno
I'm not sure what happened exactly but I'm assuming the rack was too worn so the seals failed to seal and the new boots sealed all the leaking fluid in till it became too much while I was going lock to lock bleeding and exploded. Anyways I ended up buying a dmax rack to swap in which I should've just done from the start lol fml.