Steering Rack Maintenance

[Jetaway]

Along with replacing all the front end bushings during my most recent project, I decided, with much trepedation, to dissemble the steering rack. My fear was that given that I have a great talent for dropping and never being able to find small parts that a bearing or shim or a whatever, a whatever that if available at all would cost in excess of an arm and a leg, would "clink" and promptly run away and hide in the secret nest where all my other dropped parts are hanging out, drinking beer, and having a good laugh at my expense. To my relief, nothing tried to escape and the procedure was considerably less complex than I had anticipated.

The FSM recommends dissembling, cleaning, and regreasing the steering rack every two years or 24,000 miles. I'll go out on a limb here and offer the opinion that the recommended interval is on the overcautious side. You wouldn't want to go as long as mine did, which featured patches of grease that appeared to be reverting to crude oil, unusual color combinations, and crystalline deposits. It's possible that it had never been disesembled since it was put together back in October of 1971. The bright side is that I could find no sign of damage caused by this neglect. One of the side springs may have been a little short of spec and there was some light wear in the side spring seats, but nothing major.

A recommendation: If possible, obtain a set of side springs and side spring seats before disembling the steering rack and just plan on replacing all of them. Maybe not pay any price, but it would be worth it to go even $30.00 -- $40.00 to have the spare parts even if replacement wasn't, strictly speaking, neccessary.

Dissembling the steering rack went relatively smoothly, with the exception of finding a wrench large enough to remove the "stopper" nut. Getting them off is necessary to pulling the rack out of the carrier for cleaning and greasing, so its not something that can be ignored. The largest metric open end wrench (can't fit a socket) that I own is a 29 mm and it wasn't big enough. Luckily, it turns out that a 1 and 1/4 inch fits almost as if it were made for it. And I needed the torque provided by such a large wrench to remove the stopper nut. To prvent damage to the steering gears I used a very large smooth-jawed adjustable wrench on the flat part of the rack to turn the nut against. The amount of force needed to turn the nut reinforces my suspicion that the rack had not been touched by maintenace, other than having grease pumped into it (and filling the boots almost to capacity).

It all came apart uneventfully after that point and the reassembly went smoothly as well.

Another recommendation / requirement: Don't think you can get away without a new oil/grease seal for the steering gear. It's complicated, complicated for a low-temparture seal that is, and unless you are very, very good or very, very lucky, it will be ruined on removal. I suspect it is designed to do so.

Chris

[ZCurves]

Chris,

This is very interesting. So if you replaced Springs, Seals etc. Would you list sources and part numbers? What grease did you use? Pictures are always nice. Thanks for the information...

[Jetaway]

The parts list can be found:

http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?44752-Front-Suspension-Advice-Request/page2

It was the oil seal, boots, and rack bushings. Sorry, don't have the part #'s handy.

Grease was Valvoline, I believe. Pretty much standard chassis grease, high lithium complex, though I suspect most are today.

I didn't replace the springs or spring seat because I didn't know what to expect. If you can find some new ones, wouldn't hurt.

No pictures, but how about some drawings?

Chris

[ZCurves]

Great! Thanks for the drawing! I have a spare rack that I may attempt this on.