Steering rack refurbishment

ceejam · Post by **ceejam** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:28 pm

Part 1
7:30pm
Go to start car to take it out the garage & find battery flat - Push out the garage, 3 point turn in the street and back onto the driveway.

Loosen wheel nuts, jack up and remove wheels - undo track rod end nuts and strugly with drivers side, passenger's side almost falls off!

Adopt the Lotus position to undo the rack to rack clamp bolt, comes out surprisingly easily, which worries me!

Undo the 4 bolts holding rack to car - using a 2 1/2 ft extension it is quite comfortable from the seats

Fiddle a little to get rack off of column UJ, wiggle a little, lift turn and it's out!
Notice writing on the rack, looks like it was rebuilt in March 2003 @ 16000 miles

Refit wheels, lower car, have fun pushing a car with wobbly wheels back into the garage and tidy up tools.
20:30
Wash hands and open a beer.

Clearly the fact it's been off before made this easier than it often is! The track rods are very floppy, but I can't feel the 'play' that I had on the car, so some checking of track rod ends (one I replaced just after I got the car) & UJ may be required

Tomorrow I'm hoping to strip, clean and rebuild the rack using the parts I group purchased from Titan a few months ago!

tut · Post by **tut** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:42 pm

Great stuff Jamie, when you have it all hacked you can come up and do mine.

<BG>

tut

ceejam · Post by **ceejam** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:49 pm

Aye, would love to, but it's taken me nearly a year to finally get round to doing mine

Post by **campbell** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 1:41 am

Watching with interest.

Refitting was entertaining on mine. Just ask Robin...(Chief Tech) !!

Top marks for having a go. Chicken feed to a Mini expert mind you, I guess.

ceejam · Post by **ceejam** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 10:41 pm

Just spent ages tyoing a reply and then Internet Exploded!

Here's some pics; suffice to say I'm glad I rebuilt it myself rather than getting AN other "re conned" rack (lick of paint and screw it up tighter!!)

Evidence it's been done before

Lovely job they did!

Didn't replace the bits that wear, just shimmed them with a washer and tightened it up!

(Almost) All the bits clean and ready to rebuild

Setting the track rod adjustment (mock up!)

Tight, and awaiting locking pin

I got the new boots on, and waiting on new track rod ends arriving before attempting what could be the fun part - putting it back in the car!

Post by **campbell** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 12:01 am

I am VERY glad you know what you are doing! I am very happy with my "re-conned" rack, but of course cannot speak for its integrity - only that it feels magnitudes better than the outgoing one

ceejam · Post by **ceejam** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 9:57 pm

Back in and working, been waiting on me having a free evening coinciding with no rain to get the car out the garage, and only got my new track rod end today (I'd replaced one not long after I got the car and split the boot on the other one getting it apart

)

I fiddled the rack into place myself, but had to call on my Dad for assistance to get it connected.

I centred the rack before fitting to the car, by measuring the distance from end of rack casting to the end of the groove on the track rod for the boot. I then marcked the pinion shaft and ran it from side to side to confirm the centre, and found that the mark on the pinion shaft I'd made when dismantling had ended up back in the correct place

I undid the "top" clamp bolt on the bottom UJ, and found the UJ slid up the column nearly half an inch, which made enough room to get the UJ back onto the rack with one bolt in loosely. In my struggle the rack or column moved, as I ended up with 1/8th of a turn more lock to the right, so centred the steering wheel (had obviously been pulled off to make it look right previously), locked the whel in the straight ahead position, undid the bolts, pulled the UJ off, turned the rack 1/8th of a turn (the correct way first time

) and put it all back together, got the 4 bolts nipped up, clamp bolts in and nipped up then checked I had 1 5/8 of turn of lock in each direction from straight ahead.

I wound each track rod end on the same number of turns (14 for QH ball joints), connected them up and put the wheels on.

The wheels looked straight so took it a wee run up the road, and it feels very good. There is no free play and no clunking when moving from lock to lock

I now have the same lock each way and the wheels do what I tell them! Just need to give it a proper Geo with the string method </pikey faction>

Post by **campbell** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:04 pm

Masterful. Good job Robin isn't reading this. He's probably getting leathered in the Geordie Express bar right this very moment!

ceejam · Post by **ceejam** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:13 pm

Certainly fun being in the "Lotus position" and realising you need to get up to get a socket from under the car, or the light, or you can't reach the bolt you need

I think from speaking to Ali at SLS the other week, and your and Robin's experience, I was lucky in a way that the rack had been out before, so it wasn't "ten years tight!"

Ferg · Post by **Ferg** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 11:08 pm

Brilliant stuff. Did you follow a guide or did it make sense as you went along?

ceejam · Post by **ceejam** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 7:29 am

I read the SELOC techwiki a few times & had it to hand, but I just "followed my nose" through most of it.

I've tried to write these posts as extra info to use alongside the techwiki.

If I can, I'd be happy to help anyone else attempting this themselves - Dr Pollock has his to do, and access to engineering tools that could make the actual refurb easier/neater.

Certainly possible at home, but access to a parts washer is a big advantage if you end up stripping it right down!

Post by **campbell** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 11:25 am

No amount of washing was going to recover mine, apparently...however it had happened, the rack bar was fubarred...potentially from quite early in the car's life actually judging by the clonking which summarily disappeared once I changed it.

Scottish Elises