How to Replace Steering Rack Pinion Assembly 2007-13 Chevy Silverado

Hi, I'm Mike from IA Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

What's up, guys? I'm Andy from IA Auto. Today I'm going to be installing this steering rack in this 2008 Chevy Silverado two wheel drive. If you need this part or other parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com.

Before we take the steering rack out, we want to stabilize the steering wheel. We don't want it to spin by accident. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this seat belt and I'm actually going to wrap it around the steering wheel, and then I'm actually plug it in, into the buckle. That way the steering wheel will not spin, because that will prevent our clock spring from breaking.

I'm going to take a pry bar and take this hub cap off first. Go around here and just pry it off. There we go. Pull that off. Set it aside. We'll take a 22mm socket and we'll loosen up these lug caps. Loosen those off. Take the center cap off. We'll take a breaker bar and a 22mm socket and loosen up these lug nuts. Now that all those are loosened up, I'm going to go to the other side and do the same.

Now I'm going to raise and support the vehicle. We're using a two post lift. If you're doing this at your house, you can use a jack and jack stands. I'll take these lug nuts off. Once we get those lug nuts off, you just take the wheel off. Now I'm going to go take the other wheel off.

Underneath here, the power steering hoses right here. This one comes from the steering pump, and this one comes from the rack and goes to the cooler. These two lines come together. On the steering rack itself is a little clip right here. We're just going to pull that off. Set that aside. I'm going to take an 8mm socket and extension, I'm going to take this bolt off. Goes right here. Going to want to make sure you have a drain bucket underneath to catch the fluid that comes out.

Pull that bolt out. With that bolt out, we can just grab the two lines and just wiggle it back and forth a little bit and it'll come out together. And the fluid's going to drain. Next we're going to take this bolt out. This connects the lower part of the steering column to the steering rack itself. You want to make sure when you actually lock the steering wheel that the front wheels are straight and the steering wheel centered, and then we can take that bolt out.

We're going to use a little bit of rust penetrant on there, because this vehicle is pretty rusty. Normally you wouldn't have to do this. It should come right out. There is a little bit of thread locker on this bolt normally, so I'm going to use an 11mm socket and extension and a ratchet. Pull this bolt out. It is recommended that you replace this bolt when we do ... whenever you pull it out.

Now I'm going to take a pry bar, you can take a little screwdriver, I want to get this lower part of the intermediate shaft off. I'm just going to slide this into the groove right here, and just bang. Just going to loosen it up a little bit. And let that's loose, should be able to hammer it right here, just like that. Slide it right off the rack. I'm going to loosen up this nut right here for this outer tie rod end. I'm going to use a 15/16th wrench. You could also use a 24mm. I did have to sand down this nut a little bit, because there was some rust on it.

Just loosen this up. I just want to crack it free. That's good for now, because I'm going to need that for a reference later. This vehicle actually has an after market tie rod on, end on it, so normally you wouldn't have a cotter pin, but this vehicle does. So we're going to take this cotter pin off. I'll just use some side cutters, a pick tool and just get underneath here. Just pull this cotter pin out. If you can't get it out all the way, you can generally just cut it off. We're getting it out. Just pull that out.

Now I'm going to take a 22mm socket. Again, this is an after market one so yours might be a 21mm. And I'll use a breaker bar and you'll loosen up this nut. I'm going to try to hold the wheel while I'm doing this, hold the rotor. Alright, with that loosened up ... I did spray some rust penetrant on there. You can use a pry bar, just slide it in here, underneath the strut. Hold the tie rod down, that'll keep the stud from spinning, and then loosen this up. If you have a pneumatic gun, you can use that. Works pretty good. We'll just slide this nut off. Just like that.

I am going to reuse this tie rod end, so that I don't mess up the threads. I'm just going to put the nut back on, so that I can tap with a hammer underneath here. If you tap right here, it's loose already. Generally it's harder to tap that. Sometimes you can tap on the knuckle right there. Pull the nut off. You can slide this out, just like that. Now I'm going to take this off. I'm going to count how many twists there are. So, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, so about 19 turns. When I go to put this back on, then I can count 19 turns again. That'll get my alignment close. You're still going to need an alignment afterwards, but at least it's in the general vicinity.

Now I'm going to do the same for the other side. Next we're going to take out these two bolts that are in this bracket. There's an 18mm socket I'm going to use and an extension with a breaker bar. Loosen these up. Loosen this one up on top. Just like that. And once they're loose, I'll just use a ratchet to take them out. Slide that bolt out. Make sure it doesn't fall down in there. If it does fall, then try to use a magnet to get it out. Take this one out as well.

Now I'm going to take these two bolts out. I'm going to use a 24mm socket. You could also use a 15/16th and a breaker bar. Break them free. One they're loose, I'll switch to a ratchet. To get pretty loose I'm just going to support the steering rack so it doesn't fall. Don't worry about that. Pull those out. We'll just slide the rack down. We're going to move it towards the driver's side, get this tie rod out, and then slide it down.

Here's our old steering rack. Here's our new steering rack from 1AAuto.com. As you can see, this steering rack, the shape is the same. It's got the same boots on it. It's got the same lines here. The shaft is the same. Comes with inner tie rod ends. A lot of times on these older racks, they will leak, and sometimes you will have a leak internal in the boot. The seals go inside the rack. If your power steering fluid is low and you can't find a leak anywhere, a lot of times it's inside the boots. And at that point you would have to replace the steering rack. Get yours at 1AAuto.com and you'll be ready to rock and roll.

Before we install the rack, we are going to take these little covers out. We don't want to forget those, otherwise when you go to install your lines, they're not going to push in properly. Alright, now we're going to slide the rack this way through the driver's side and then back up over the passenger's side over there. Line that up and then slide these bolts into position. There is some thread locker on these bolts. You can add thread lock, or if you get new bolts, it should have the thread locker already on it.

Get those started. Before I put these bolts in, this bracket isn't lined up with the holes. What we can do is take this bracket and just try to slide it. It will slide on the rack. It's not fixed to the rack, but ... we'll get these bolts started. For this one I'll just take it and put it on my socket, feed it through the hole. Just going to start tightening down these bolts. I want to do it kind of evenly so they all get tightened down the same length, so the rack doesn't get crooked or anything.

Now I'm going to use my 24mm socket and a torque wrench. I'm going to torque these two bolts to 148 foot pounds. I'm going to torque these two bolts down to 74 foot pounds. Okay. Okay. I'm going to take this tie rod and start installing it. Just screw it on. We're going to count our turns, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. That's where the old one was, so we can move this nut back on here, and slide this back into the knuckle. Push down. Take this nut, get this started.

Alright, to prevent the stud from spinning in this tie rod, just going to take a pry bar, slide it into here, pry down on it while I take my 22mm socket and a ratchet and tighten this up. Then I'm going to take a torque wrench and I'm going to torque this to 44 foot pounds. Just like that. This tie rod has a castle nut with a cotter pin, so if yours has when then you're going to always want to replace with a new cotter pin. You never want to reuse a cotter pin. Most factory tie rods don't have this. We'll just use some cutters and just trim this down. Trim that down and then we'll just trim off the excess on this side. And then we're going to install the other tie rod the same as this one.

I'm going to use my 15/16th wrench, just going to tighten up this nut. The torques back on this nut is 55 foot pounds. I don't have a way to tighten with a torque wrench, but if you do, that would be the torque. Alright, so after that, all that stuff is installed, you're going to want to make sure the front wheel is straight. If you have to, you can put the tire on and make sure it's straight before we put the shaft on. Line it up. You can always look down the rotor and make sure you see the center of the rear tire.

Okay, now that we've got the wheel straight, now we can align this shaft up. And it looks like it's got to move a little bit, so you can always just push on the knuckle a little bit to get it to line up. You just don't want to do it too far. Because if you didn't have the wheel straight, then the steering column's not going to line up properly. Get that on. Just going to take a screwdriver and just work this down a little bit. Next we're going to install this 11mm bolt. It's recommended, like I said before, to replace this bolt.

And I'll slide that into position. Just need to snug this up. Then we're going to torque this with a torque wrench. And we're going to torque this to 35 foot pounds. Looks good. Alright, we're going to install these new seals that go into the steering rack. The steering rack itself doesn't come with these seals, so we need to get these. Just take the seal. It's going to go right into this position right here, like that. I'm just going to take a 9mm socket and extension and just give it a little tap. There you go. Just like that. We'll do the same with the other one.

Now this seal, it doesn't look like it has an opening, but when you install the line, insert the line, it's going to break the seal open and that will make it seal better. Just install this on the bottom one. These seals are the same size. Okay. Take these lines, line these up in the rack, and you just press them in. We'll take our 8mm socket, extension, ratchet, get this bolt started. Just snug this up. Now I'm going to take a torque wrench and I'm going to torque this to 104 inch pounds. That's good.

Slide the wheel over the lug studs. Put the lug nuts on. I'm going to use a torque wrench and 22mm socket. We're going to torque these down to 140 foot pounds. We're going to torque them in a star pattern. That's going to tighten the wheel down evenly. Looks good. Now I'm going to the center cap. I'll use the socket, the same 22mm socket, and just snug these down by hand. You really don't want to tighten these because they're plastic, they'll end up breaking. Now I'm going to take this outer hub cap and we're going to line this valve stem area up right there and just push it on.

And we'll do the same with the other side. Now we're going to fill our power steering fluid. Take this cap off, just going to use a funnel. Make sure you get the appropriate type of fluid. You can generally check in your owner's manual. Then we'll top off the steering fluid. Just going to check where my level is. Just put the cap back in, check the dip stick. It's just on the little bit on the end of the dip stick. I'm going to fill it up to fill cold. You can see where it says "fill cold". Put the dip stick back in, pull it out again, and that looks pretty good right there.

At this point, I'm just going to put this cover back on. Alright, for bleeding the power steering system, we're just going to turn the key on with the engine off. I'm going to go from lock, all the way to the right, then all the way to the left, lock again. I'm going to do this 12 times. This is pumping fluid through the power steering system. It goes from the reservoir to the pump down to the steering rack. And the steering rack is actually the one pushing the fluid through. Then it'll go through the cooler, then back to the reservoir. Alright, after we did that 12 times, we're going to steer the steering wheel straight, turn the key off, and we're going to recheck our fluid.

Take the cap off, wipe the dip stick off. Reinsert the cap and check it, and it looks pretty good. It's right at the cold line, cold full line. So at this point we can start the vehicle and turn the wheel back and forth a couple more times, and then shut if off and we'll recheck the level.

Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.