<E30> Power Steering -- Please help.

["Mike Theuri" <mikesoft@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Early this week I mentioned that I had made a mixup by 
putting in synthetic power steering fluid instead of ATF.
Apparently this was not supposed to cause any harm,
atleast according to my mech., Valvoline (synthetic ps) 
and the BMW dealership service. However it appears that
there was a previous leak from before, that hadn't been 
attended to from the guy I bought it from a week ago. I 
ended up taking the car to the mechanic and his diagnosis 
was that I needed a new rack and pinion because that 
is what was leaking. I doubt if he really checked the 
problem but he probably did it visually and also since he
had quite a bit of work to do on the car he might not have
bothered to check it thoroughly. I decided to go under the car 
myself and check where the leak was coming from. I topped 
up the ATF fluid, turned on the engine and turned the 
steering wheel to each full end of a turn and then checked 
under the car to see if a leak would show and sure enough it
did. I'm not very familiar with terms but I will do my
best to describe where the leak appears to come from. The 
leak appears to be coming from the point where steering 
column connects to the front axle and where there is a 
connecting nut. I placed my finger on  the connection and
there was a small black plastic pipe that seems to run from
the left side (still looking from the front side) and the end of
seems to be circular and ends at this connection. It appeared
to me that the end was supposed to be plugged into something
at the joint as I was able to lift it up. Its directly below this
point that the leak appears to be coming from. Is it possible 
that my mech, is wrong about the rack and pinion system ?
Does anyone know what purpose this pipe is for ? Any insights
on how to fix this ? Gene, do you think this has something to
do with the o-bolt ? (Please send me the url on fixing the o-bolt) 
Thanks in advance for your help and assistance.

Mike Theuri --- '86 325

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End of bmw-digest V9 #12
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