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Now, you, guys, getting me paranoid :-) I feel like I need to get in there and check it asap. The only thing that calms me down is the fact that I do not hear any noises turning the steering wheel, the steering wheel is straight. I can also pop the cover and check the steering fluid level to tell me if there's, in fact, a leak in the steering rack. I shall provide the findings here.
I've done a rack in a first Gen Lexus and it was NOT a hard job other than lining up the wheel linkage and mailing sure you transfer the tie rod ends correctly. On my current one, the set up looks almost the same. It won't cost you 1.5 K if you DYI.