bent power steering hard lines

[yubh8tn]

While I was trying to take my inner tie rods off of a rack that isn't in the car, I bent the hard power steering lines that are attached to the rack and go to the rear. I took it to a hose shop to get soft line replacements made, but they couldn't find a fitting similar to the side with an O ring. What are my options? Could I try and re use the fittings on some soft line? Or should I just buy used lines?

 

[fongvr4]

let me know if you can find the power steering lines for the back. mine leaks, and rusty, but I can't find replacement lines./ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

 

[yubh8tn]

Quoting fongvr4:
let me know if you can find the power steering lines for the back. mine leaks, and rusty, but I can't find replacement lines./ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif


What I ended up doing was getting softline replacements made at a hose shop. They work perfect! They had the fittings with the O-rings and the flared fittings, screwed them into a Push-Fit adapter, and gave me some Push-Fit hoses to cut down to the right length. Overall extremely happy with the new lines as they look really fancy and were only $25!

 

[iceman69510]

Post some pictures of what you did if you can. this will become extremely useful on these cars as they age. I actually have another rear steer leak somewhere after replacing multiple components years ago when they were still available new.

 

[yubh8tn]

I wish I took pics. I just got the subframe back in the car and removing/replacing the hoses will be difficult, but I'll give it a try for sure

 

[yubh8tn]

Alright, here's some pics. The hose shop I went to was actually an air compressor shop, so I hope that helps people in the future. I'm holding the fittings backwards in the picture, so it's hard to see, but the bottom part of the fittings are actually the fittings in the red box (pictured below) cut off the old hardlines, and merged with the push fit fittings. They are then pushed into the hose and hold surprisingly tight. After that, they can be screwed into the lines going to the rear of the car like they would normally.


Here's the side that goes into the rack. They had the exact fittings with O rings at the shop and put push-fit fittings on the other side.


If you're replacing the lines in the 4ws rack in the back, I'm sure its a very similar process


edit: Just a note, if you use push-lock fittings they will pop off on your first hard turn. One hose clamp keeps them on but I put on two very tight just to make sure. I recommend avoiding push-lock if you can, just make some an lines or something

 

[iceman69510]

Thanks for the further information and pictures. I was looking at my car last week, and I have a leak somewhere in the rear, I believe in a pressure line. I took car of all the front hard lines 10 years back when I could still by them.

 

[yubh8tn]

Over a year update: Don't do push fit. They will pop off. It may be okay to run it on the return side but the feed side will pop. It lasted a while for me with the multiple tight hose clamps but over time it eventually blew and now it wont stay on. Try and do AN if you can, the difficulty though is adapting AN to the flare type connection on the lines that go to the back. Might have to replace the lines all the way to the back rack. Once I get it sorted I'll update again.

 

[iceman69510]

Good feedback. I don't remember actual ratings, but push-lock fittings are probably not good for over a couple hundred PSI of pressure. I think the PS lines go much higher.

 

[tyeler18]

Any good hydraulic shop can braze on fittings to the hard line and then build hydraulic hoses between the fittings. My power steering hose on my montero and BMW are both -6 JIC lines brazed onto stock lines with a -6 JIC hydraulic hose then built to connect them. You need steel fittings for power steering, aluminum -an isn't rated high enough to last. It costs me $6/ fitting brazed on at my local shop and around $12?/ft for the hydraulic hose and they crimp everything for me.

 

[yubh8tn]

Can confirm: tyeler was right. I got some JIC lines made and that compressor shop fitting I mentioned earlier that was the correct thread and had the O-ring is actually AN so the JIC lines I had made just screwed right on. No leaks

In case anyone does this in the future: Get the rack side of the feed JIC line made into a 45. I forgot to ask so had to get a 45 degree adapter. I stripped the AN fitting trying to put the line in without the 45, it hits the rack and gets torqued weird. Besides that, tighten those fittings and lines onto the rack with the rack outside of the car if you can. It's almost impossible to tighten them completely inside the car; there's actually not enough room in there to use the wrenches I own. The return line fitting in the rack is actually impossible to install/remove with the rack in the car as it is basically touching the swaybar. So do as much of you can on that part outside of the car. Besides that, it works great. Hope I help somebody other than myself lol