First off, @Stu-Scotland - sorry your car's putting you through the mill like this. As @bobins said, I've got my eye on the steering rack pipework, but I'm not very far into it. I've still to test my suspension pipe fittings, then I'll look at the rack, between a mixture of being busy with work, then catching COVID, and a flu a month later, and a few household things cropping up, I've not had time
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What I can say about the steering rack pipes pipes/hoses, is that they go into the rack's rotary valve with a pinch bolt holding on a collar, the hardpipe sticking out of the collar forms a spigot which has a groove in it for an o-ring that forms the seal, so they shouldn't be too hard to extricate, one bolt and the pipe end comes off the rack. From what I've gathered what tends to happen is that the ends get distorted during the removal refitting to change the rack.
@bobins kindly sent me some parts to measure up, a rack rotary valve housing and all the pipework. Having studied that, what I'm planning on doing is drilling out the rack's port, tapping it to 1/4" NPT (National Pipe Thread), putting a 1/4" NPT male x JIC 4 nipple on there, then looking at the pump, doing something similar, and getting a conventional 1/4" JIC4 hydraulic hose crimped up.
These hose --> hard tube --> hose --> hard tube --> hose monstrosities are more like refrigeration technology than hydraulics. If your problem is that your power steering pipes rubber section has perished, but the hard tube and end fittings are OK, as crazy as this sounds, you actually want to discuss it with a fridge tech? The reason for going to a fridge technician is they braze the aluminium hard tubing to an aluminium hose ferrule, which is then crimped onto a hose, whereas 99% of hydraulics stuff is done with steel ends, and AFIK there are no such brazing steel hose ferrules, but hose technician is a whole trade in it's self, and I'm more hydraulics than hose.
Try ringing around a couple of fridge technicians, explaining that you need the aluminium fittings retained from a powersteering flexible hose line, I don't know what pressure this particular powersteering pump works at, but they are typically in the region of 900-1,100psi. That is a little higher than the working pressure of some of the aircon/fridge hoses I've seen, however those hoses have a burst pressure of ~3,000psi, so while not strictly spookum, it
should work. I'd also see if you or your mechanic would be comfortable drilling and tapping the rack and fitting the "nipples" I mentioned earlier? Either way, I'd say also talk to Pirtek, the national hose franchise, and see what they can do for you? Another thing that could be done would be to cut the hard tube, flare them to JIC4 /JIC6 female, then have a JIC Male hose crimped up? There's a lot that can be done, but it is going to need some specialist support.
I wonder how long I can resist moving the C5 on..