Under the inner tie rod boots, are steering racks usually dry and clean or smeared with greasy wet residue?

 

was gonna install a used xt6 rack. I pulled a inner tie rod boot and the shaft was wet and smeary but not pooled up and the boot was not wet on the outside and showed no leakage. I don't have any others to look at and The other side boot was already removed and cleaned up for storage so that's not a comparison.

 

Im not sure if it was previously leaking or this is normal residual grease. I'm hesitant to install what might be another leaking rack.

 

I haven't paid much attention to how the grease/shaft looks when doing inner tie rod stuff before.

 

XT6's use a golden fluid, not red so color is no aid here.

 

Do I have a 100% chance of leaking or only the standard 50% of a used rack ? Lol

every subaru rack ive ever replaced boots on has had grease smeared around inside. it gets thinned out with ATF from seal leaks, but if you don't have any puddling up, in the boots, youll be fine.

 

they put it in there for rustproofing and seal longevity.

 

(rustproofing might be a residual effect of leaving grease in the boot. when i lived in the rust belt, id see steering rack shafts pitted from salt and water getting in and eating the steel.)