Steering rack was leaking and causing lock up on my ford ute. Had already replaced the pump twice.
Bought a new rack and tie rod ends but mechanic too busy before xmas and I needed the ute.
So did it myself, started at lunchtime and all went well until I tried to reconnect the high pressure hose late afternoon.Somehow it wouldn't go in but eventually found a thread and worked it in but felt like it cross threaded. Reworked until it went in but very tight - was hoping it wasn't cross threaded. Should have stopped then and bought a new hose. But persisted and got it to seal but with a small leak and decided to live with that and tighten again later. Did a rough alignment and drove it around for a few weeks but it seemed a bit floaty or occasionally railway tracked. Thought maybe alignment was out so had an alignment done. From the waiting area I could see the guy was shaking his head and grabbed a large spanner and tightened up the two main bolts holding the rack - I'd left them finger tight! Guy came and spoke to me and said : "who did your rack?" Two days later I thought well that's fixed, let's see if I can risk tightening up the hose fitting to get rid of that annoying leak. Gave it one half turn and it cracked the casing of the rack causing fluid to pour out of the rack. Rack was rooted. When I pulled it apart I could see I had cracked the cast housing , crushed the hose fitting and threaded it in at an angle. mechanical butchery.
So pissed off I couldn't bear to look at the car for a week . But bought another rack, cheaper recon one to ease the pain, and a new hose and redid it in 2hrs this time. Lesson learnt.
I dont normally stuff things up but this one just reminded me we all make mistakes and there are some things we shouldn't kid ourselves we can do. Nothing ventured, nothing gained?