Hi all, I'm finally tackling my steering rack rebuild in my '84 S3. I have it all blown apart on the bench now and am having trouble locating a replacement seal in my kit for the following component/bore:





Here is the seal that I removed:


Here's what came in the kit, which is FVP 9103 from Rockauto.



I couldn't match up the offending deal with anything in the kit. Are these available separately?

 

A swing and a miss on the pinion seals. I must have expanded the blue pinion seals too much with the plastic because I wasn't able to get them to contract enough to avoid being nicked.



I have another seal kit on the way. Any tips to prevent the same issue?

Damaged noted on the tube/rack seal, probably during disassembly



Last seal left in the kit...where does it go? Big fat o ring.

 

Take a look at my thread, posts: 65 and 143. May help you out.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...j6-lt1-211881/

Dave

 

I had every intention of rebuilding mine, until I found one on rock auto! Lol, I did have to swap out the inner tie rods on it, but I was back on road in just a couple of hours!! Still have original on a shelf

 

Would have loved to just swap one out, but Rockauto shows out of stock on all models.

 

Last night I got the new seal kit in and got to work. If you don't respect the learning curve it can get expensive buying new seals, so some research indicated that resizing teflon rings is a common practice.

I started by getting a rough measurement of the OD of the spool lands.



And then transferred that measurement to my seal sizer, onto which I stretched the teflon pinion seals after soaking them in hot water for a bit.


The seals went onto the pinion valve easily, and I then installed my seal compressor to shrink them back down.


Installing the rack tube seals


Centering the rack bar after the housing and ends were assembled - 3/16" bit.


My solution to rotating the pinion. Worked perfectly with no damage.


Rack is back in the car and plumbed, test fire in a few days...

 

This was my first time rebuilding a steering rack and it was easier than expected, just required attention to detail and cleanliness. The only special tool that I needed to buy was a spanner wrench which I got on Amazon.



I found the following links particularly helpful.

This video was great for reassembly:

Instructions for a similar Triumph rack
https://triumphowners.com/resource/p...-instructions/
https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws....ck-Rebuild.pdf

Schematic:
https://parts.jaguarlandroverclassic...e=C06572794813

Seal shrinking technique:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/xjs-x27-32/rack-pinion-seal-kit-installation-advice-needed-217567/

https://ls1tech.com/forums/automatic-transmission/1554005-how-install-teflon-seals-without-tools.html

Hope this helps someone in the future. I would have really loved to just swap the rack with a reman but everything seems to be NLA from the typical commercial sources like Rockauto, Advance Auto, Autozone, Napa, and O'Reilly. The prices for a reman rack from the Jag specialists were high enough that I tackled the rebuild myself.