interesting thread - nice to see something different being made - good luck with finishing it & I hope its successful
firstly let me start by saying i love people thinking outside the box and this is how improvements are made with everything in life but looking at you rack photo's i have a few questions? 1 In first photo do you think a 6mm? thick folded plate will be strong enough to handle the steering forces especially if hitting a pothole loaded mid bend? and why weld in bosses for track arms from og steering horn when you could have made the bracket from thicker plate and taper reamed it for the track rod ends to locate in? 2 Why refit the rag joint in middle of the shaft as this will allow shaft to bend slightly as there is no support bearing in the bottom of the column tube and will wear the bezel box and cause stress in the joining shaft that is home welded and i doubt crack tested? 3 what supports the bezel box on the outer edge to stop it stress fractuing the single bracket as it moves up and down? 4 on the 4th photo the appears to be nothing to supporting the driveshaft and long pinion extension with cause leverage on the steering gear pinion shaft bearing causing premature wear to the steering rack. 5 last question why not move steering rack upwards to make steering track rod adaptor plate shorter and to make the thin rack mounts shorter reducing flex and increasing strength in both? again im not flaming you thread im just suggesting a few things, at the end of the day a motor vehicle is a dangerous thing and if something snaps when you driving there's going to be a few awkward questions for you to answer and the insurance will try and get out any claims. If you have modified it and a engineer deems its not up to the job theres problems. Im sure there is also in the mot handbook something along the lines of "suspension and brake components should not be welded" id look it up before mot time? hope this helps
Thanks for your suggestions @13 window deluxe, 1 My original intentions where to have a similar plate reamed but couldn't find any one local with the facilities or knowledge if you can believe that! I don't have the tools so I decided for a quick fix by utilising a steering boss. 2 Good point and not crack tested 3 nothing at the moment,@zed, and@Paul weeding confirmed needs support on both sides 4 Again good point 5 Looking in to that, If the rack was mounted higher it would also need to move further back so bracket wise would be mounted to the chassis,which I don't really want to do, Not having a servo though would allow the drive shaft to come through between the beams once the servo bracket was removed and replaced with a bearing and support for the drive shaft. This is work in progress and thanks to all your suggestions It will be improved tried and tested.
when i fitted the opel/vauxhall rack on my split bus i was going to make a bracket as i suggested with the tapers reamed in it but mounting the rack to the chassis made it higher and allowed me to use the original green vauxhall steering arm inner 6" i had them chucked up in the lathe and a m14? thread turned on to them then shorted and re-taped the vw original steering arm to suit. I have also done away with the rag joint at the bottom of the column and in the past 5 or 6 years have never noticed any vibration or shock coming back up through the steering wheel. hope this helps and gives you a few more ideas on the topic
Cheers mate, good info. I had a look again today at the possibility of raising the rack, I would have to raise it a minimum of 120 mm for the input shaft to clear the bottom beam and have only 100 mm clearance from the rack to chassis unless I could utilise a left hand drive rack and invert it as the input shaft is off centre and would give me the necessary clearance. It would be better raised as there would be more ground clearance and at least 70 mm clearance between shaft and ARB at full swing. How did you get around not using the rag joint on the bevel box?
If you inverted the rack, wouldn't the wheels turn the opposite way to the steering wheel like a clown car...
cut rag joint flange off the bottom of the column, then turned golf steering rack uj shaft down till it slid inside column then drilled and pegged it, then plug welded through wall, them seam welded it! proper belt and braces
Derrrh, I suppose I could turn my seat round to face the opposite way and put on my size 35 red boots to go with my large red nose! Thank God your paying attention zed..... Oh well, back to plan A.
I did and i checked it about 20 times before all brackets were seam welded and the van was fully painted under floor the setup is complicated and theres alot going on underneath my van and i think i had worked out a shaft turned clockwise but then looked at it from the other end of shaft so that was a anti clockwise? best bit i didnt notice till 6 months later and all the suspension and brakes were fitted didnt take much to fix in end just got a lhd rack and it was cured.
This is a great thread chaps. Tell me about the T25 box please - Is there an intermediate gear inside or do the shafts turn in opposite directions? It looks symetrical? If the shafts turn opposite directions you could turn the box over and also turn the rack over?
and the shafts the same? So you could turn it and the rack over to make it steer the right way? Sorry that's rubbish, I confused myself.
Here you go zed.......it's even got your name on it for your next project! <embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/playe...bums/g384/howard1964/IMG_0894_zpsc33f5b92.mp4">
Is it worn? I heard it clunk. Looking on ebay, it seems you can get racks made the other way up presumably for cars where the steering comes down directly to the rack through universal joints, so it's doable with the right rack?
