Weird power steering issue

[wsn9594]

I let my son drive my 1994 mustang GT to school......

Heavy rains going home, he made the turn to the onramp to interstate, lost control, spun 360, and went sideways thru the grass.

He survived and car survived, mostly.

While turning the wheels, while going almost all the way to either side while trying to get it lined up to pull into garage, there is a weird pulsing. I thought I was feeling it through the steering wheel.

With the car up in the air I can see the two big lines to the rack seem to start dancing. One line goes to the cooler the other to the pump (I assume that it is the pressure line). There are no leaks but these lines seem to have alot of movement at the rack. This car and my parts car have a zip tie around all of the lines at the rack. Both cars zipties are loose. Is this a factory fix?

The car did not do this prior to his off road experience.

The suspension on the car was rebuilt 2 years ago with new ball joints, outer tie rods, and poly bushings. Everything looks good and feels tight, extremely minor movement for rack bushings. The input shaft of the rack almost seems to have some movement.

What am I missing?

With engine off, turning rack side to side makes fluid leak out thru cap. No pressure leaks with engine running.

 

[cobrajeff96]

If the wheels slammed into something, that force surely was transmitted into the steering gear which of course the input shaft is directly connected to. Could be physical damage, and this in turn could possibly affect the high pressure input (lower fitting) or the lower pressure output (upper fitting) but you can't really know unless it's disassembled. Could just be that the impact loosened up a fitting underneath and air seeped in. That's the tricky thing about air in the system: there might not be a leak but it doesn't preclude the possibility of a pinhole air leak somewhere. If something solid beneath the car like a log or stone smacked a hardline fitting good enough, yea.