- This is the kind of stuff that can go wrong
when you try to do it yourself.
This is some stuff I would joke about happening.
I thought I was being careful, thought I was being gentle.
And now I'm living it and I don't like it.
Ahh! (growls)
This sucks.
The Miata's power steering has been leaking
and leaving puddles all over my driveway, exhibit A.
So, we've basically got two options to fix this thing.
I could replace it, which would cost me about 200 bucks,
although it would only take a couple hours
and it would definitely work.
Or I could take this old nasty one out,
blow it apart and try to fix whatever's leaking.
And that would only cost me about $30,
although it is gonna take probably three, four, five,
six hours, I don't know.
And I could screw it up.
So, guess which one we're gonna do?
We're gonna take a crack
at rebuilding this power steering rack.
And along the way, we'll talk about how power steering works
and why sometimes fixing stuff like this yourself
is worth it, and why sometimes it definitely totally is not.
And I don't know which way today's gonna go.
I'm Zach and this is Money Pit.
Let's get dirty.
(bomb exploding)
(thunder crashing)
Okay, so we've got the power steering rack out
and it was pretty easy.
All we had to do was disconnect the inner tie rods
from the outer tie rods.
We disconnected the steering shaft
from the steering input here, and the fasteners
that hold the steering rack itself to the car.
So this thing is old.
I think it's as old as the car.
It seems to be leaking from some of the seals
somewhere on the input shaft or the pinion area.
So, we're gonna take it apart, clean it up
and replace the seals.
And, hopefully, that will stop the leak.
(upbeat electronic music)
(hose buzzing)
What's that?
So, when you're deciding whether or not doing a DIY project
like this is right for you,
you need to take into consideration some factors
like the time.
How much time is it gonna take you to do?
And the money. (bell chimes)
How much money could this potentially save you?
And the tools.
Do you already have all the tools that you need
to do the job?
And how much knowledge you have, what your skill level is.
Can you do the job?
And ultimately how reliable you want the thing to be.
Because a project like this just is not worth it
if it doesn't work at the end.
Okay, so we're about ready to rip into this thing.
What do ya think?
(upbeat jazzy music)
So, now, as this comes apart,
we're gonna wanna pay careful attention to the order
in which it comes apart so we can put it back together.
(upbeat jazzy music)
Okay, so now that we've got this whole thing blown apart,
and we're at the point of no return, let's take a look
at how this steering system actually works.
I'm sure you've heard of a rack and pinion,
but now you can actually see it.
This is your rack and this is your pinion.
And when you steer your steering wheel,
you turn your pinion, which interacts with your rack
and turns your wheels
whichever way you're tryin to turn 'em.
Now, that's pretty much how it works,
whether it's a manual rack and pinion
or a power steering rack and pinion.
The power part comes in over here.
This seal right here divides the rack into two chambers.
And one of those chambers will be pressurized
depending on which way you're trying to turn.
If you're trying to turn to the left,
we'll pressurize this side
and that'll help push the steering rack this way
to turn left.
If you're trying to turn right, it's the exact opposite.
Pressure comes over here and pushes this way
to help you turn.
The question is, how do we tell the pressure
which side to go on?
Well, that comes back to the pinion,
which has a tricky little rotary valve built in.
So when you turn the wheel,
pressure comes from your power steering pump into here,
and you turn your pinion.
And that rotary valve makes a determination
on which way you're tryin' to turn and sends pressure
to the side that'll help you turn that way.
It's honestly really simple.
The only problem is when the seals go bad
and you have to replace 'em.
So let's replace 'em.
(mellow jazz music)
- [Man] What happened? - [Zach] This seal just broke.
- [Man] What did ya do?
- [Zach] I don't know.
Well, we've got terrible news.
I was tryin' to put the rotary valve back on to the pinion
and this seal was apparently a little too stretched out
from install and is very fragile.
And as I kinda slid it down,
we just shocked this seal right in half.
(beep)
Boy, oh, boy, this is definitely a mark
for the not worth it side of things.
This is the kind of stuff that happens.
But, man, I was being so careful.
Now, what am I gonna do?
I don't actually know.
I guess it's not completely unreasonable to think
that like a Pet Boys nearby might have this kit in stock.
I guess I should go hit the old Internet.
- [Man On Phone] Now what is this part?
- It's for a 1994 Mazda Miata.
- [Man On Phone] No, not the, what part is it?
- Oh, it's a power steering rack rebuild kit.
It's like a seal kit.
- [Man On Phone] Oh, that's a, oh, a seal kit, okay.
- They're not gonna have it.
But hopefully some auto shop does.
- [Man On Phone] All right, bud, none of our stores have it,
not even our hub.
The only way we can get it
would be if we order it from the lender,
but that would be here till Tuesday.
- Okay, well, I appreciate it.
I think I'm gonna keep tryin'.
- [Man On Phone] Yeah, I'm so sorry, bud.
- All right, no problem, thanks, man.
- [Man On Phone] All right, yeah, bye bye.
- Have a good one.
(beep)
These are the breaks, kids.
These are the breaks.
(dramatic piano music)
All right, so over the weekend, I did some learning,
did some research, and I learned a lot about Teflon seals.
Basically, the problem with these
is that when you install 'em on something like this,
you kinda have to stretch 'em out to get 'em into place.
And then they're a little bit too big.
So you need to figure out how to shrink 'em back down.
Basically, what we're gonna do is put the new seal
in some hot water before we install it.
That should help make it a little bit pliable,
maybe expand it a tiny bit.
And then once it's in place, I'm gonna whip up a little tool
out of a two liter of Coke that should help us
force it back down to a smaller size, so we can install it
without destroying it.
Shoulda done that research ahead of time probably,
but, hey, we're here now.
(upbeat electronic music)
All right, let's give it a shot.
- [Man] It hadn't been that long.
- Well, how long you think it takes
to warm that little tiny thing up?
- [Man] At least more than two minutes.
- What do you mean?
It's as hot as the temperature of the water now.
The thing's tiny, it ain't got no heat capacity.
- [Man] We got one shot.
- Well, what, do you think I have learned?
(upbeat electronic music)
All right, so that's the easy part.
We got this far last time.
Problem now is how baggy the seal still is.
Now we gotta make it be smaller.
We'll see where we get with this,
and if it still looks too baggy,
I'll stick it in the freezer, for sure.
Where's my scissors?
(upbeat electronic music)
Pop it through.
- [Man] That (beep) is not gonna do anything.
- Yeah, I mean that is my concern. (laughs)
The idea here is the pressure from the hose clamp
will force the seal to shrink back up
to its original size or at least close to it.
As long as we can get it in place, it should be fine.
The power steering worked fine on the Miata,
and then we had to get in here and fix it and ruin it.
You know what I mean?
Honestly, what I could have done is,
there was nothing wrong with this seal.
I didn't really have to go this deep.
I didn't have to replace these Teflon seals.
But we had new seals so I figured I might as well.
That was my mistake.
Okay, well, let's take this thing off
and see if it looks any better.
Ah, it looks, yeah, it looks better.
It's definitely not as baggy.
I could see a gap before.
I mean, I think we probably should try to freeze it
and see if that helps at all,
but that looks better for sure.
Oh, yeah, that's definitely better.
This is gonna work.
All right, it is the official moment of truth.
I just pulled this out of the freezer,
and between the hose clamp thing and the freezer,
this seal looks pretty good.
It's pretty tight on here
and I think we're gonna be able to get it installed.
But if we can't get it installed, if I break it,
then that's it for power steering.
So nervous.
I'm so scared that it's gonna drop down into that.
This is the hard part.
This is where I broke it last time.
It looks pretty good, I think it's gonna go.
You can see it right in there,
I think it's going into its groove.
(dramatic symphonic music)
I think it worked.
Okay, cool.
Never looking back.
All right, so the seal went in, I'm pretty sure.
It didn't feel like it broke, felt great.
So, I think we can just continue.
Slam this thing back together and put it back in the car.
And, hopefully, we'll have no leaks.
I mean, that's the whole thing.
You know, this whole seal thing, yeah, we got this seal in.
But this wasn't even our leak to begin with.
And just 'cause I got this done
doesn't mean that I fixed the leak.
We could still put this thing back together
and it could still leak.
So, this is a victory, but it's not everything. (laughs)
So let's just keep goin'
before we get too happy with ourselves.
I guess from this point on, we're gonna go with gloves.
(cheerful electronic music)
Yeah.
(hammer tapping)
Okay, so we are almost back together.
I'm about ready to tie my boots into place.
But before I do that, I'm gonna find a center on the rack
so that when we put it back in, we're putting it in
in the center of its travel left and right.
So, to do that, basically I have the rack turned
as if it were turned all the way to the right.
And this is our entire amount of travel.
So right in the middle of this
should be the center of our rack.
So, I'm measuring the entire thing,
then dividing it by half.
I'll make a little mark there.
I'll run it in until we hit that mark,
and then that's how I'll know that we're at center.
That's approximately our center point.
So we'll run until that.
So that should be about center for us.
Cool.
So now we'll put our boots on
and then put this thing back in the car.
What do you think about that?
- [Man] I love it.
- Since I have the rack out
and the power wash is right there and hooked up,
I'm gonna blast this real quick,
get all this grime off of here.
(hose buzzing)
I got some water on your lens.
All right, we're finally ready to put this rack back in
and see if we fixed the leak.
So I'm gonna slide it onto the steering column
and then mount it up.
(bolts clacking)
(wrench clicking)
All right, so last week
when we were taking this thing apart,
I took some paint marker
and I marked on the ends of our tie rods
where our tie rod ends met up with the threads here.
So that when we put things back together,
we could roughly target what our original alignment was.
This will get us into the ballpark
and it should make the car drivable
if you're doing this at home and you're not able to align it
after the fact.
But you should be able to align it if you watch this video.
So the last things we gotta do
are pour some fluid in the system, then bleed it,
then start the car and see if it leaks.
I've currently got the car off
and I'm just going lock to lock, all the way right,
then all the way left, 15 or 20 times.
And that'll force fluid through the rack and force air out.
And then I'll do the same thing with the car running
just to make sure.
That would suck worse than anything
if, like, it leaked from somewhere else now.
Can you even imagine?
Well, this is the moment of truth.
Let's turn it on and see if all this work's been worth it
or for the birds.
(dramatic symphonic music)
(ignition buzzes)
(car running)
Okay, now no huge leaks on first startup,
so that's good news.
Now I'm gonna check the fluid level,
make sure we didn't suck a bunch down,
make sure our level's still good.
A little low, little low.
Right in the middle.
Voila, everything looks bone dry and really nice.
So, so far so good.
(power tool buzzing)
Now, all right, let's take it for a spin.
(hood slams)
(abrasive scratching)
(electronic humming)
(beep)
Well, there's just that puddle?
- [Man] No.
- Oh, no.
(beep)
I wonder what is the--
- [Man] It's leaking from everywhere.
- Okay, man, that's just completely (beep).
Ahh.
(wood sliding)
I've never seen anything like this in my life.
I can't believe this.
This is some stuff I would joke about happening.
And now I'm living it and I don't like it.
(wood sliding)
(tools clanking)
Ahh! (growling)
So what do you guys think?
Is this worth it?
You wanna get into cars?
(mellow electronic music)
Well, I mean, this sucks.
That is so sad.
I think we just saw the last of the power steering
in this Miata, because I don't know,
I'm not sure what I did wrong or which seal I busted
or what, but it's leaking all of the fluid
onto the ground now.
So, ah, (beep) you know what I mean?
This is how it goes, I guess.
Let's actually recap that real quick.
In terms of time, well, I'm not done yet, so,
(buzzer buzzing)
this is taking so much more time than I anticipated.
Money. (bell rings)
Well, I'm not done spending yet maybe.
(buzzer buzzing) Especially if you believe
that time is money.
Well, in terms of tools, ah,
I thought I had all the tools I needed to start with,
but then there was that kinda weird seal issue,
which I didn't have the right expensive tool for.
So I tried to make one and we saw how that went.
(buzzer buzzing)
But I did learn a thing or two.
I mean, did I?
I can't even say that I officially learned anything
because we're leaking (buzzer buzzing)
so much fluid. (buzzer buzzing)
So apparently I didn't learn anything,
and that is the biggest bummer of all to me, I think.
I thought, you know what?
Hey, this has been a bit of a struggle.
There have been some hurdles.
We didn't save that much money,
but at least I learned something
and at least we rebuilt a power steering pump.
But now I can't even say that.
So, honestly, I'm so disappointed in the way this has gone.
I've never had so much trouble with something like this
and it sucks.
So this was not worth it at all.
I shoulda just bought a remanufactured power steering rack
from the get-go, or done what everybody else does
and just delete the power steering and be done with it.
Get rid of one more pump, you know what I mean?
This one was not worth it at all.
I'm Zach and this has been one hell of a money pit.
I hope you guys enjoyed it because I haven't.
Now that we've got these huge puddles
of power steering fluid in the driveway,
we're gonna have to figure out how to clean my driveway.
So, get ready for that.
And if you guys saw me, if anybody knows a thing or two
about rebuilding power steering racks,
and you saw me do something blatantly wrong
that caused this, tell me, please.