The Freelander 2 steering rack is a Ford product that has a weakness in a Teflon seal that wears out, whereupon the O-ring pops out and the piston stops working. Because of this weakness, a power steering rack should be considered a long-term [expensive] maintenance item, like the air struts on a Jaguar X350.

This is what a good seal and O-ring looks like.



Seal kits are available, but the major cost is in removing the steering rack and taking apart the rack which requires special tools. I bought a used rack and pump from Pick-a-Part that had an engine-out FL2 and took them to Porana Power Steering (https://poranapowersteering.co.nz/) in Auckland to have the core rebuilt. When I saw he had a shop to remove, I opted for bringing the car in when he had reconditioned the core.

I had already changed the fluid and reservoir, and cut open the old one to examine the filter:





It clearly shows the perished O-ring, but was not plugged up.

The fluid looks like this





Porana replaced the steering rack, but also found problems with the pump. Good thing I bought a core because mine was stuffed:





Porana said it looked like it had overheated, typically this happens when an SUV gets stuck in sand (NZ has a lot of beaches) and they just keep turning left and right to extract it.

Porana did not open the rack off my FL2, but I asked him to keep it as a core. I'll list it for sale on TradeMe fully restored, adding the Porana cost to what I paid for the rack at Pick-a-part.

The power steering works, makes no noises and it passed the WoF. Expensive, but the vendor had factored in the cost in pricing it at about 1/3rd of what comparable FL2 are asking on TradeMe, so I'm OK with it.

PDF Page 537 Freelander 2 Repair Manual https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z13lctkhyk5...e5&e=2








[/url]