Steering Rack

[bobinyelm]

Unfortunately I apparently got my car with one of the steering racks that had some extraordinary friction in it (it appears to have been in the right side internal bushing).

Reg kindly sent me a replacement rack to install, and being a used unit, I had to transfer the inner/outer tie rod ends from my unit to the naked replacement rack.

I was very careful to not damage the locking washers from my "old" rack, as the used ones supplied with the replacement rack appeared pretty badly bent up.

Upon removal of the inner tie rods, I was surprised to find the locking tabs that are there to engage the slots in the rack itself (the outer portion of the washers is then bent over the flats on the tie rods to lock the rods to the rack) had evidently been sheared-off when the rack was assembled (I was pretty careful to make sure they didn't rotate w/ the tie rod when unscrewing same, so I don't think they were damaged on removal).

This means possibly the only things holding the tie rods to the rack itself were about 3/8" or less threads when accounting for the washer thickness, and some Lock-Tite on the threads themselves. It took very little torque to unscrew one of the tie rods from the rack, in fact, though the other one was pretty tight.

The used locking washers supplied w/ the used rack were in far better shape than mine, so I very carefully straightened them, and re-used them after examing the inner tabs, and of course applied a liberal amount of blue Lock-Tite on the cleaned threads to help out.

My point is to caution those who drive, or track their cars at VERY high speeds that they may wish to pull their rack boots back and consider installing new locking washers at some early point, or at least checking to make sure that their inner tie rods are still fully threaded into the rack itself and are tight (If some torque doesn't move them tighter, I'd hesitate to apply more to break the thread locking compound unless you disassemble and apply more).

I just visited a good friend in another state who owns the sister car of mine, and remembering that he told me he'd seen over 160mph on his speedo a few times made me cringe when I saw what holds the tie rods to the rack.

My own plan is give my buddy a call, then to replace my used washers with new ones, if I can source a couple, ASAP.

BTW...anyone know what these racks also fit so if the good guys down at Backdraft can't get some, I can find them elsewhere?

Bob