1998 mounty 5.0 rwd steering gear leak | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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1998 mounty 5.0 rwd steering gear leak

truker

Member
Joined
March 14, 2013
Messages
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City, State
fort lauderdale florida
Year, Model & Trim Level
1998 mercury mountaineer
My 98 mounty has a power steering leak coming from inside the boot on the steering gear. Is there a fix or do I need to replace the rack. How about some stop leak; like Lucas?
 



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i dont know how well stop leak will work on a rack. never tried it, and i am not sure of anyone who has. but if the rack is leaking into the boots, it will be replacement time soon
 






I'm looking at the Chilton book and on page:8-39 Fig.72 shows a picture of the steering gear connected to one side of the boot and on the other side the inner tie rod; If I replace the tie rods would that buy me some more time until I can afford to replace the rack
 






Replacing the tie rods won't do anything. If it leaks, just keep topping it off with fluid and bleed it, and you should be able to keep using it for a while, until you can afford the new rack.

You will eventually need a new one though, as anything that can leak out can also let contaminants in. When you replace the new one, be sure to do a good flush, and it's not a bad idea to install an inline filter as well.
 






obie thank you for you're reply; I value you;re input and will follow you;re instructions when I replace the rack but for now in dealing with those contaminents do you think it's a good idea to use synthetic ATF with cleaning ajents instead of power steering fluid?
 






Couldn't hurt, but it's probably not much benefit for the cost. Personally, I run and I love the Valvoline MaxLife stuff. It's not too expensive and who knows, maybe your leak is just small enough that it'll fix it. Otherwise, at least you're refilling it with quality oil.

To be honest though, if it's leaking quickly enough to make you refill every day or two, you might as well just run parts store brand PS fluid until you replace the rack. A constant influx of clean oil, even if it isn't the best you can get, should keep it working fine for quite a while.
 






The leak is small, I,m losing about an inch of fluid every two weeks. I,m picking up some of that Valvoline Maxlife this morning and hoping for the best. thanx
 






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