It worked really smooth for me. Mine had a yellow plastic piece on the splines to ensure they slide together at the right spot. After that I just lifted the rack and pinion up into place. It took a bit of maneuvering, but nothing too hard. Hope it works for you.

I hope you got it to work. I had to do this a second time and I ran into the same problem. What I found to be the issue was one of the wheels had turned. As soon as I straightened it out, the bolts fit.