Was cleaning up a steering rack assembly I plan to put in the AE92, as part of this I smeared a very light coat of ATF (the working fluid for this rack) on the exposed parts of the rack/piston and slowly turned the rack through its travel by attaching the proper U-joint to the pinion shaft. As I was doing this I noticed that maybe a teaspoon of old-looking fluid came out of the end of the rack body nearest the power piston. This means it has mad leakz right?
Were the boots full? If the boots were on, and all you got was a teaspoon or so, that's pretty minor. Impossible to say til you get it under pressure.
Boots weren't full, there were no prior signs of leakage.
This is a tricky situation now...a pre-emptive rebuild would be expensive and risk causing further damage to the rack that could only be fixed with a full re-chroming and possibly even re-boring (which I would have to send it out of the country for). On the other hand, installing a rack into the car only to find that it's leaky would also be expensive and cost a lot of time.
I'm thinking a bench test might be worth it if I can find a local shop that does it.
Edit: 3rd option: I could install the rack in the car and try adding PS stop-leak if it's leaky. It'll turn the rack into a timebomb, but it could buy me some time and give me a performance advantage for a while if it works.