Fitting a reconditioned steering rack is not difficult in theory. But it is a fiddly job mainly because access to the rear of the engine bay is limited. It took me about four hours, that's twice as long as I expected.

The basic idea is simple. The two bolts holding the steering tie rods onto the steering unit were undone. The rubber flexible coupling in the driver's foot was loosened, an uncomfortable operation. The rack is held on by two clamps. Access on the drivers side is a bit tricky since the brake cylinder obstructs the view. Make sure that you have a narrow 13mm socket for this - a 1/4" drive. I found the standard 1/2" drive socket too fat. There are two hydraulic connections, a flow and return. I disconnected these lines at their join with the flexible hoses. The one was an easy jubilee clipe job. The other was a hydraulic union and was heated by blowtorch for about 10-15minutes to make the job easier, and it did.

With the unit free I managed to manipulate it out via the top of the engine bay, none of that Haynes manual bull about taking a wheel off to get the unit out.

With the unit removed I removed the two solid hydraulic pipes from the old unit. This entailed undoing two hydraulic unions. Once again, the trusty blowtorch was used to cook the joins for 10-15 minutes. Getting the union bolts into the new unit was troublesome. The first one felt very tight. There was a reason for that. It was crossthreaded. It took me about an hour of hassle to get it going in straight. In that time I managed to strip the first 2mm of thread out of it. This was worrying since if any swarf got into the hydraulic fluid then it would have wrecked the seals. In the end I managed to get the union in by using a hammer and punch to correct any angling. Once it started to bite then I was OK. I was more careful with the second union!

After that refitting was pretty simple, just boring and hasslesome. At one point I ended up lying on top the engine with my feet off the ground just so I could see what I was doing. Top tip: reconnect the flexible coupling before doing up the main fixing bolts. The system needed topping up with new hydraulic fluid. It's the same stuff as automatic gear boxes use, not much was needed in my case. The system then had to be bled out, and unlike brakes it's a simple operation. Basically it involved turning the steering from lock to lock with the engine running and topping up the fluid level so that the pump never ran dry.

Finally the front wheel alignment (tracking) should be checked.