aley

Since the remanufactured rack comes with the inner tie rods, I hopefully won't need the correct tool. If they're not installed (or aren't installed correctly) I'll probably make do with a pipe wrench, with rags and duct tape to keep from scarring up the inner tie rod. Thanks to everyone for their insights. I understand a whole lot better now how the entire thing goes together. This is the first truck I've worked on with rack and pinion steering, so it's a new beast to me! Dave

The entire subframe is slimed with oil from the leak, so I imagine I'll start with lots of degreaser. :-) I suppose I'd worry a bit about the longevity of a salvage yard rack, especially the boots. Did you replace the boots on yours? $40 sounds a whole lot better than $300. :-) XPLORx4, thanks for the detailed steps. You make the process sound plenty simple, and probably saved me breaking my clock spring, which I hadn't even considered. :-) Any suggestions on removing the inner tie rod ends? Will a pickle fork work, or will that just damage them? I'm not clear on what the parts guy said about "inner tie rods included," but if I go with the reman rack I guess I'll find out. :-) Are the bushings a dealer-only item? I've seen various other threads where they contribute to sloppiness and cause a clunk when the wheels are turned, so I guess I ought to go ahead and replace them. Thanks, Dave

The rack and pinion on my '97 SE is leaking. It's not a huge amount yet, five or six drops in the driveway after sitting overnight, but it's picked up quite a bit over the past couple of months and I don't expect it to stay small. I also just discovered a torn boot on the passenger's side of the rack. Is there any reason I should try to reseal the rack rather than just replace it? My parts store quoted me just short of $300 for a reman rack assembly, complete with inner tie rods, so it's not horribly expensive to replace it. Also, how involved is the removal and replacement of the rack? It's not clear from a cursory inspection how to get the rack off the truck. I'm assuming that the toe-in has to be set after replacing the rack? Any other tricky things? Is this a job that's better left to a shop, or is it something that can reasonably be done in the driveway?

I bought my '97 Pathfinder in '09 with just over 100k on the clock. I have really done very little to it - I've added a hitch, wiring, and a trailer brake controller, put a set of 31x10.5 BFG ATs on it, and other than that I've driven it about 45k mostly trouble-free miles. The only ongoing trouble spot is the brakes; I've replaced pads and rotors twice now because of warping issues. I bought it as a chase truck for my hot air balloon, so most of the four-wheeling it sees is with the chase crew at the wheel rather than me, and most of it is with the balloon trailer hitched up. It's gotten its share of desert pinstriping (which none of the crew will own up to doing), but I have yet to have anything break. It's only been stuck twice, once on a berm getting back onto a dirt road after recovering the balloon (a little digging and a yank with a tow strap took care of that) and once when one of my crew members tried to turn it around with the trailer attached in deep, sugary sand down in El Paso - when I dropped the trailer it drove right out, but it took us another hour to get the trailer back on the road so we could hook it back up. :-) Anyway, after a long debate with myself about buying something that can haul more people, I've decided to keep the Pathfinder (it's paid for, I know all its little idiosyncrasies, and I still like it an awful lot), so it's time to do some of the deferred maintenance and projects on it. I'm hoping I can get a winch on it for a little less than the price tag of the ARB bumper, but that remains to be seen - I suppose it all depends on my design skills. :-)