2001 Sport Trac - power steering issues

[lesham]

Not sure how many people will understand this question, but wtf is up with my power steering lol.

I noticed last winter driving back n fourth to the mountains that i would have a red colored liquid on the snow. Well come this summer my power steering fluid has been leaking like crazy.

When I turn, it makes the obvious winding sound that sounds like power steering pump failure, but I'm pretty sure thats not the case.

There is fluid leaking from some hexagon looking block near the front axle and its only on the left side. Some reason the boot was off and i was able to look into whatever it is, and rub around and feel the fluid and did a taste test to confirm it was power steering

The leak is not so bad of a leak, but there has been days that i was sitting in the parking lot with the truck off, and i watched the entire resovior drain right before my eyes and i had to steer with no power at all (that was not fun making a left then a right and then another left into the parking lot for some fluid).

Anyone have a clue what might be going on?

 

[lesham]

after looking at diagram after diagram I found the leaking to be from the rack and pinion. Is this something I can do or would it be better to take to the local garage?

 

[ncranchero]

You can buy rebuilt racks. They're not the easiest thing to change on a Trac from the looks of it.

 

[John_Rock]

Not easy, but possible. I did mine the other year.

 

[lesham]

I'm goanna take a stab at it this weekend, the local junk yard has one off a low mileage ST for $70 so I'll just grab that n see how things go. I noticed the fluid was only leaking out of the rack n pinion so I'm assuming this aught to be it.

 

[Jackson9373]

Update? I am having the same problem with my 2001 Sports Trac. I was wondering whether to buy the seal kit or replace the whole dam thing