1988 240 Steering Rack failure: P/S Pump as Well?

Our 240 has been showing signs of a dying steering rack for
two years. Since we only use it as a spare car, we haven't been
proactive about replacing it - especially because it has had to
have brakes and an exhaust as well. Last month the rack died
while my housemate was getting ready to drive the car. It dumped
fluid in the driveway, and the pump was groaning. I refilled the
reservoir (having not yet seen the massive leak), but even with
fluid in it the pump makes *lots* of noise. Is this likely to be
just air in the system, or do the pumps fail that quickly (maybe
5 minutes run time, at most) when deprived of fluid? It wasn't
noisy before the rack went.

And what is a decent price to have an indie shop replace both
units with rebuilt parts?

 

The pumps can be real noisy with air in the system, replace the rack or
whatever else is leaking (have you checked the hoses and fittings?) and
then go from there. A new steering rack is a few hundred bucks, not sure
how much labor would cost but it shouldn't take more than an hour for a
competent mechanic.

 

The one estimate we got so far was for $800 for the rack,
$1300 for both units. About 5 years ago I got an estimate of $700
for the rack. (It turned out to be just the steering U-joint back
then.) We'll try a couple more shops. The parts are only about
$300 plus core charges from NAPA.

BTW, is this a ZF unit, or did they use different ones even
in the same model year?

 

Check out alloemvolvoparts.com and fcpgroton.com, you can probably pick
up a rack for a bit less.

 

The labor charge is the real killer, here. I can't do the
job myself, and want to know what the low end would be for having
a shop do it. I don't think it'll be $65 for labor.... ;-)

 

Well most shops won't want you to bring in your own part, labor will be
whatever they tell you it'll be. It's really not a difficult job, but if
you can't do it yourself you pretty much have to pay whatever they
happen to charge.

 

Let me try again. I was asking what people have paid for this
job. I priced NAPA parts because it isn't hard to find shops here
that use them. I'm hoping to establish what is "high", "low" and
"reasonable" to pay for this job. I was also wondering if the ZF
rack was the only one used in '88, or if others were as well.

 

3 hour job excluding the wheelalignment, besides ZF Volvo used Camgear

 

This will be close to the price. Shop rate at shop you choose X 3 hours +
online part cost X2. Most shops plan to make money on the parts they sell.
They mark them up not just to add to profit but to cover their acquisition
costs, ready availability from suppliers and the fact that they can cover
their additional costs if the part acquired should be wrong part, fail or
otherwise need to be replaced at shop expense. When you walk in with a part
they not only don't make the markup they are really, really trusting that it
is the correct part and that it came from a "trusted" supplier. I can
understand that they won't work with parts you walk in with. I have been
able to do this with one of my two Volvo's but only when the shop did not
have ready access to the part.

Hope this helps
Howard

 

Thanks.