New steering rack fitted but ...

[Guest]

Just had a new steering rack and track rod ends fitted, steering now less vague and is an improvement at speed. But ... at speeds below 20mph there is no self-centering at all, so if I turn a bend, there is a horrible and scary lurch if I do not center up. Any ideas anyone? Thanks.

[alan_thomas]

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The major contribution to self centring is the castor angle but you could not have changed that by doing the work you did.

But after fitting the new rack and track rods are you sure you have the tracking correct as this would affect the self centring, if your tracking is OK it must be that the rack is too stiff. I have not stripped my stag unit but if it is the same as all the others I have stripped it will have shims to adjust the mesh of the rack to the pinion. Sometimes it is tempting to adjust up a rack to take out slack due to wearto get it thru the MOT and it this makes the rack too stiff to self centre.

- Alan

[Guest]

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Hi,

I'm not sure about the tracking, the work was done by a Stag specialist, I would hope they did the tracking too, though thats not itemised on the invoice. I'm trying to avoid taking the Stag back to the garage, its a 200 mile round trip.

Any idea what factors or work would affect the castor? Car has had loads of work done on it in the last 12 months.

Thanks for the reply.

[alan_thomas]

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The castor angleon the stag is setup by design. The castor angle fixed by the position of the top of the strut (bolted to the turrent on the inner wing) and the length of the drag strut back to the chassis leg (again fixed on the stag) so I cannot envisage any work that you could have had done which would have changed the castor angle.

- Alan

[Guest]

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If the top strutmount is knackered ( having read this months SOC mag, I think it is having read Kingpins description), would this have an effect on geometry?

Thanks

[alan_thomas]

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hazell_privateeye wrote:

If the top strutmount is knackered ( having read this months SOC mag, I think it is having read Kingpins description), would this have an effect on geometry?

Thanks

No, but if it makes it very stiff to turn this could be your problem. If you jack both front wheels off the floor the steering should be very light to turn even with engine not running and no stiff points should be apparent. If there is stiffness I would not expect it to be the top strut joint, I would expect this only to add stiffness when the weight of the car is on the joint. Stiffness with the car jacked up would be a tight rack IMHO.

- Alan

[Guest]

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I'll try that, thanks very much Alan for your help.

[Guest]

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I decided to check the fluid level in the pump, and according to the level marker on the cap, there was too much fluid put in. I removed some of the fluid, so it is spot on the level and went for a test drive. Well it seems alot better now, a little bit lighter and it self-centers now. Maybe because all the seals etc are new, too much fluid could cause problems? Does that seemfeasible ? Anybody know?

Thanks

[DJT]

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hazell_privateeye wrote:

I decided to check the fluid level in the pump, and according to the level marker on the cap, there was too much fluid put in. I removed some of the fluid, so it is spot on the level and went for a test drive. Well it seems alot better now, a little bit lighter and it self-centers now. Maybe because all the seals etc are new, too much fluid could cause problems? Does that seemfeasible ? Anybody know?

Could be. The level should be checked with the fluid hot, I believe. On myMk1 Stag there are two levels marked on the (metal) dipstick- one for hot and one for cold.

Dave