Rob, his rack is obviously bad due to the leaks. What would cause it to push fluid
out of the reservoir on shutdown? I've seen a lot of racks failed in various ways but
that's a new one for me.

 bbyer, the "check valve" that you referred to is not in the hose. It is an orifice
in the high side port on the rack. Basically a disc with a hole in the center that
goes into the fitting before attaching the hose.

Absolutely.

Time to change out the rack - the seals have failed... you have ALL of
the symptoms.

Rob

the p/s fluid level on this 99 taurus i'm working on is fine when the engine
is running, and the steering works great. but when you shut off the engine,
the fluid slowly comes up and spill out of the pump reservoir. i have never
seen such a thing!
i looked online to see if anybody had had this happen, and alot of people
were saying that it can be cause by an air pocket, but i made sure that it
was bled out, there is no way thats causing this.
I read that there is a problem with the pressure lines. is this true? another
mechanic i know said he changed one on a taurus once because there is a check
valve built in to it and it goes bad, causing this same problem.
 before i  became aware of this i changed the pump and there was no change.
but now i noticed fluid leaking out of the tie rod boots. there must be some
serious pressure build up in the system to blow the rack seals out. now i
guess i'll have to change the rack and the pressure line? the parts guy at
ford said they dont do too many pressure hoses. hes never heard of this
problem.

has anybody here heard of this?