Steering Rack Swap Advice: Kinked Hose (to Reservoir), Advice needed!

[alas]

Hello All,

I've recently attempted to swap my blown steering rack for a z3 1.9 e36 rack on my '89 325i.
I'm nearly at the finish line but I've got this kink on the line from the rack to the reservoir(return, thinner diameter hose).
I was wondering if any of you had advice for me on either routing differently, or if I have to resort to bending the metal pipe before the flexible hose?

Here's a snapshot of the problem. The green arrow shows the kink and the blue circle/box is where I'm thinking I need to straighten the bend...


I was hoping I'd be able to slightly straighten the bend, to alleviate the kink in the hose, with some straps and pulling while everything was tightened down, but that didn't work out so well. My next thought was to heat the pipe and try again, but I seem to run across lots of people online recommending to not heat these pressure lines.
So then my next thought is to take the line out again and straighten on my bench.
What's the safest way to do that without risking a kink or crack in the metal pipe? Fill with sand and use a proper tool? Or can I do it by hand with a vise?

Any recommendations from those who have run into a similar problem?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!
Happy new year!!

[alas]

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!


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[turbo55]

Why is your hose kinking to begin with? Is it too short? You could try putting a hose clamp on the kinked part to force the kink back into a circle - it worked on my shop vac hose after I used it to suck up hot water and it developed a kink.

[alas]

Steering Rack Swap Advice: Kinked Hose (to Reservoir), Advice needed!

Why is your hose kinking to begin with? Is it too short? You could try putting a hose clamp on the kinked part to force the kink back into a circle - it worked on my shop vac hose after I used it to suck up hot water and it developed a kink.

Yes, I believe the way I've routed it, it's a bit short. Perhaps there's an alternate route to the rack I can take, but I've tried for several hours and this seemed the best to actually get a flush mounting position on the rack.

I will try your suggestion to see if I can undo that kink today. Thanks for the advice!

Update to come...


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[turbo55]

Why not just get a longer hose? The return hose is low pressure, so it's not expensive.

[alas]

Well, because I don't know what it takes to connect this fitting:


I was able to bend the other metal pipe a bit away so no more contact metal to metal and I tried your idea of a hose clamp to straighten out the kink and it looks okay now:


I'll let you guys know if this works out okay for me in the long run. Otherwise I'll explore longer tuning options or further pipe modification (straightening) out of the vehicle.

I apologize for the large photos, my app crashes every time I select the "small" option for image uploads.




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[turbo55]

Cool, glad that worked! Gotcha about the connection, I forgot you said you have a Z3 rack. I remember doing my return hose on the stock E30 rack and I think that one just had a bulge on the pipe that you can slide & clamp a hose over.

[alas]

Ah ok. That explains it

Thanks again, man.


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