I never did that but I would suspect you would have to try pretty hard to mix them up. Normally, when you turn the steering wheel / spool valve, two ports open on the valve. One directs pressurized fluid to one side of the power piston in the rack assembly and forces it to move. That pushes the fluid out from the other side and through the second port back to the reservoir. You turn one part of the spool valve to open the ports. As the rack moves, it turns the second part of the valve to close those ports. That's what makes the power piston stop moving as soon as you stop moving the steering wheel, and that's what isn't happening now. Now that I think of it, if the lines were reversed, the pressurized fluid would go to the wrong side of the power piston through the return port and push the piston the wrong way. The force is extremely strong and there would be no way you could hold the steering wheel to stop it. What you would have to do is turn the steering wheel the opposite direction very quickly to close the valve, and most likely you'd go too far and the rack would take off the other way. (I don't think you have the lines reversed).
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011 AT 5:50 PM