iadubber

Good morning AW,
I recently picked up a 2005 A4 S Line 3.0QM knowing it needed valve cover gaskets. So while I was doing those and cleaning up the oil that had leaked out I noticed behind the heatshield on the drivers side where the power steering hoses run back to the rack that they were caked with grease. Looking back further to the rack and the hoses are gunked up so bad. I took the wheel off and the lower control arm was black with the build up from I'd assume quite a long time of leaking. Is there any way to tell where it's leaking and is it normal if a rack leaks to have a slow leak? They've obviously had problems as I can see some hose clamps are replaced with worm clamps at the normal connection at the pump but also on the reservoir. I did have to top off the fluid when the pump started to make whale noises. It seems I can't even diagnose it without pulling the rack out there's just so much build up in and around the rack/hose area. Could it be as simple as the crush washers? Thanks for any help.
iadubber

turbo510

Could be something simple, but I've got a 2005 3.0 and fairly recently changed out the rack due to a catastrophic seal blowout. I even reused the 'crush washer' after smoothing all marks and polishing them, no leaks. If you remove the plastic shield where the tie rod comes through, you should be able to de-grease enough to locate the leak.

Edit: When my rack had the seal failure, it was discharging fluid out of the "centering hole" in the rack housing. That is a tapped hole which allows a tapered-point screw to fit into a cone-shaped recess in the actual rack, to hold it centered for steering wheel installation, tie rod initial setting. While that was the main issue by far, I did notice that the fluid return hoses's crimp fitting was loose enough that the banjo end was easy to rotate, and there was evidence PS fluid had seeped out and collected dirt. You might be able to tighten the banjo bolts in case they are loose and the source of the leak.

One the 3.0, the driver's side cat and heat shield are so close to the bottom of the rack that access is almost, but not completely, impossible. The correct way to work on it is to get the cat and heat shield lowered out of the way, which I would do if I had to replace a rack again.