Rack & Pinion steering swap, 2000 Dakota 4x4. 2wd's should be similar.

Have the shop manual on hand for torque specs and to use as reference.

Jack up front of the truck and support with jack stands and remove the front wheels.
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Disconnect power steering lines to the rack & pinion steering unit (R&P unit)
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Remove the pinch bolt from the steering column to the R&P unit
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Using a pickle fork or separating tool, remove both tie rod ends from the steering knuckle
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Remove the splash gaurd from under the front radiator area. this will give you access to the bolt heads that hold the R&P unit to the frame.
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Unbolt the R&P unit from the frame.
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Now you should have everything disconnected & unbolted...

Slide the unit out of the passenger side of the truck. you will have to move it far left (driver side) then back out of the passenger side to be able to remove the passenger side rod end 1st...

Installation is reverse of removal... Refer to the shop manual for torque specs.

Before the the new unit is connected to the pump, I recommend flushing the pump by connecting hoses to the lines and running power steering fluid thru it. this way if there is any contamination in the pump, you will flush it before connecting to the new R&P unit.

Once done with the flush, connect the lines to the R&P unit and fill to the cold mark on the indicator (bottle on a 4.7, dispstick on 3.9/5.2/5.9).

Fire up the motor and turn the steering wheel back & forth many times to get the air pockets out of the new R&P unit, then top off the resivour, check for leaks and your done.

You should get an alignment once this swap is completed... or you can set the toe youself, it's easy.

 

Great post! More helpful than the writeups in Haynes & Chiltons combined b/c they showed the rack & pinion in front of the crossmember.

I did find that in order to get the thing out I had to crank it to the left. A pair of pliers on the input shaft worked quite well.

 

I gotta say Steve, you have done some pretty nice write ups! I guess that your bad luck with broken stuff has at least benefitted the rest of us! Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

 

Changed mine out today, your write up helped.

What a pain in the *** to get the R&P in and out, worth doing and worth saving lots of cash from a garage doing it.

I replaced mine with a Fenco from Autozone, got it for a real good price, after discounts and returning the core unit it cost me $86.35 from $233.

Hope it last, don't fancy doing this again anytime soon.

 

This is probably a shot in the dark.
but do you know if you can put a steering rack directly into a 99 dakota 4wd? I'd like to put a steering rack on for less weight and moving parts along with the sligtly better response