I bought my vx about 5 months ago with only 52,000 miles on it. It lived most its life in Texas and about 1 year in California. So it's in really great shape, virtually rust free. However, I noticed a slow power steering fluid leak that left a small puddle on my garage floor every day. It wasn't real bad, I just had to add a little AT fluid every few days. I was annoyed by this so I decided to fix the leak.
I identified the source of the leak to be the steering gear. So I bought a seal kit off eBay for about $25 and went to work. At first, I wasn't able to get the pitman arm off the gear nor the pitman arm off the ball joint. I bought a $12 pitman arm puller from Harbor Freight, which I bent trying to separate the pitman arm from the ball joint. After reading a few threads about pitman arm removal I pretty much learned that the one key ingredient necessary, which I didn't really use much in my first attempt, is shock, as in hammer applied. So off I went to Harbor Freight and got them to give me a replacement puller.
On my second attempt to separate the pitman arm from the ball joint, I first backed the castle nut off the ball joint flush with the end of the stud (On my first attempt I took it off completely and actually deformed the end of the stud with the puller, which I was trying to avoid in my second attempt). I then placed a hex nut on the end of the stud/castle nut to which I then attached the pitman arm puller so as not to damage the stud any further. I put a c-clamp across the 2 legs of the puller to keep them from bending outward. I applied some good torque to the puller and then proceeded to take two hammers and repeatedly hit the pitman arm oppositely so as not to put any bending stress on the shaft. I did this for as little while before repositioning the puller so I could bang on two different points across the pitman arm. After a little while longer, the arm popped right off the ball joint.
Next, I unbolted and disconnected the steering gear from all of its attachment points. In order to get it completely out of the car, I had to remove the plastic radiator shroud and loosen the fluid cooler line to make enough room. After wrestling with it a while it finally did come out. Into my workbench vice it went.
Removing the pitman arm from the output shaft was a lot easier than I thought. I used the same method as before. Puller attached and opposite hammer action released it in no time. Took the gear apart and replaced several o-rings and seals. Put everything back together and reinstalled. No more leak.
I did notice a lot of steering play so after about 200 miles I adjusted the output shaft to take out all of the play. Don't know if that had anything to do with it or not but a few days later the output shaft seals started leaking buckets of fluid. Has anyone out there experienced anything similar? I'm thinking that either the $25 eBay seal kit is worthless (the OEM dealer version is $165) or I screwed something up in installing those seals. I was very careful in orienting them properly per the service manual. When I inserted the output shaft, I put duct tape over the serrated end to avoid damaging the seals. I did have to remove the shaft and reinstall it after the first time because of a problem I had with the worm gear but I used the duct tape each time.
Does anyone know what size the two lower output shaft seals are? I may try to source them and replace them alone rather than buying a whole new seal kit. At the same time maybe I can source some better quality seals. If all else fails, I may just look for a used steering gear from a junk yard or possibly a fellow forum member? Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.
