Nice work, you are going to catch up to me on photo count if you aren't careful.

 

Thank you, Clarke,
One picture vs 1000 words and all that. Some of these things, I don't know how to describe them anyway.

This rack has given us Fits and it's still not finished! It's NOT a straight forward bolt up as one might imagine. Not only that, it's fought us Every Single Step of the way!

The older style racks aren't even rebuilt anymore and you can't get parts, so if yours hasn't been changed, well, take Good care of it because you will Not like what you have to do to change it yourself!
(';')

 

These were a Lot easier than they could have been. The hardest part was getting the old ones out.

First he tried a regular Redi-Rod but the first bushing wouldn't budge. So he picked up a length of 5/16 inch grade 8, a hand full of flat washers and some long nuts.

You can see his setup in the picture below. Redi-Rod, a long nut (grade one) for many threads, a stack of flat washers, a socket that Just fits inside the bore. A large socket, big enough to receive the bushing, several flat washers, Redi-Rod through and 2 long nuts, grade one.



Here is more detail of the tool.


Again his through sockets came in Very handy. As he tightened the smaller socket the bushings were pushed out of the bore. As I mentioned, the first one complained bitterly (the reason for grade 8 rod) and when it did move, it shuddered.

So he was ready for a very long session of this, but the other two bushings came out easily.

The bushings came in a kit.


Then it was merely a matter of putting the bushings in the bore


and squeezing them together with the vise grips you see. He had to be careful to let the air out while squeezing or a hydrostatic lock developed with the grease and the bushings wouldn't fully enter the bore.


They all went into place easily.


(';')

 

Nix's OEM steering rack was leaking oil like a Liberian tanker. I may have mentioned previously that we got a newer one from a junker we stripped soon after we got this car. We thought it would be a straight across bolt up affair! How Foolish and Naive of us.

First of all, the plumbing on the new rack comes out the front whereas the old one comes out the back. I've already shown other differences, the need for spacers under engine mounts for example, but I haven't posted the more Nasty modifications required.

To allow the S3 rack pipes to fit an S2 cross member the rack mount must be modified to make space for the pipes to go forward. Husband mounted a large washer, equal to the size of a bushing as shown, and cut back the mount as shown.





The reasons for this will be plainly seen when the rack is fully installed.

While trial fitting the rack into the cross member we could see immediately the trimming wasn't finished.



There was Not sufficient clearance between one of the rack pipes and the frame. Notice how close they are.



So he ground some more of the corner off.


After trimming that a bit there was more clearance but not enough to suit me.



The rack bushings come with washers which we used as spacers to move the rack over enough to fit easily and give Plenty of clearance to the pipes.



So I bolted it up in this position.

Below you can see the reason for all this trouble.

It's an even tighter fit than it appears here.
If this doesn't work I know at least 2 people who will be Seriously annoyed!
(';')

 

So many jobs on this car have been uncharted territory that when we find something useful I like to pass it on.

We found this thread Enormously helpful!
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...nt-how-126796/

Of course, we encountered some problems unique to our situation and I'll describe those.

We hadn't intended to change these, but while mounting the rack to the subframe husband noticed a Great Deal of looseness in the joints! So much so that I could hear the clunking across the shop!

So there was yet another delay while a new pair of inner tie rods were ordered, made their way up the valley and onto our front porch. They weren't really expensive, considering what we've already spent on this car in the past 6 months; less than $60 US delivered from XKs Unlimited.

WARNING!! SAVE THE BOOT CLAMPS!


There are 2 end caps, for lack of a better term, of vastly different thicknesses (the thick one was on the Left end), each originally having a locking washer welded to it. Also, between the red arrows was originally a flat location boss that mated with a flat on the shaft to keep the assembly from turning on the rack.




One of the ears was completely missing from one of these locks, and the other side had one folded IN and the bolt tightened until that ear was completely flat, and as seen in the picture above, the inner flat was completely gone!

The loose locks got welded back to the end caps as spacers only because they certainly weren't useful as locks anymore. This may be unnecessary, but as we're unfamiliar with this type of rack we're not taking any chances with clearances. The ears were ground off the washers, washers welded to the end caps, end caps ground smooth.

To be sure none of the welds caused any interference husband ground them flat on a sheet of Wet-Or-Dry paper, laying on a car window glass to make sure it was *Flat.*






When the end caps were cleaned up and all burs, lumps and bumps smoothed out they were set in place on the rack.


These rods, along with the outer ends, set the toe adjustment but the ends must be removed to put the new boots on. To have it somewhere close to correct when we're finished the old end was taped at the extremity of the tie rod end threads.


To transfer this measurement to the new inner rods, one can't simply count the threads. In his youth husband ruined a new set of tires trying to do that because the ends have different numbers of threads.

This seems like a Mickey Mouse way to do this but we don't have the tools to do it properly. So a couple machinist's squares had to suffice. One square was laid across the nut ends, and another Much longer square was kept absolutely parallel as you can see in the picture between the arrows, and the other end squared up the tie rod end bolts, carefully extending or shortening until the new inner rod was the same length as the old one.


The locking nut was snugged up to the new tie rod end and the threads taped.


As the original locking tabs were no more, the thread cited above recommends securing the ends with Loctite so that's what we did.


And just a little in the inside.


There are no published torque specs for these nuts so he tried to tighten them to about the same effort as it took to remove them. He used a 12 inch Crescent wrench, braced himself on the cross member and put quite a lot of his weight on it. If you take yours off you'll have an idea how tight they should be.




Installing the boot.

WARNING!! Clamps come with the new boots, but they may NOT fit your rack!


As you can see in the above picture the new clamp is Seriously shorter than the old one that came off. When I took the clamps off I merely straightened out the crimp and they nearly fell off on their own. The new clamps however, HA!! They wouldn't Even come close to enclosing the boot! So the old ones got straightened out and reused.

One of our old boots was held on with Zip-ties, probably because they couldn't get the new wraps to work.

The boots are intended to keep dust and krud out of the rack so they are tight, but they're also pliable. If you have a blunt 90 degree pick you might have an easier time.

Notice the new rods can support their own weight. This is Much Better!




(';')

 

The PO had just done the rack bushes and new boots not long before I got the car, it doe's leak a bit of PS fluid but not enough to drip on the floor. Just enough that I notice it when I am under the car and give it a wipe clean.

 

You're very glad of that Clarke,
Between the leaking rack and the front of the oil pan, I had to have a drip pan under the car at her parking spot in the garage. I had to keep a close eye on the steering fluid too.

We'll know if this change will work when we go to match up the rack with the lower column. That promises to be a Real Challenge; like the rest of this hasn't been!?
(';')

 

When you read the instructions for this procedure they're a little scarey. "Remove the plug, stick a probe in, turn the rack until you find the hole" or something like that.

This had to be done because the rack got moved during installation of new inner tie rods. It would be sort of nice to have the steering wheel straight while I'm driving straight though, so this is the necessary thing to do.

In practice it wasn't nearly as dangerous as it sounds.

The plug is 5/16 and comes right out.


The largest probe thingy that would fit was a small cross head screwdriver.


He wrapped the column stub with Many layers of old t-shirt and clamped a vise grip for turning.


While watching the tie rod ends to see where was sort of close he moved the rack with the CLEAN screwdriver in the hole, and <Click> it fell Right into the centering hole in the rack! There was No doubt!

But just to make sure he took the screwdriver out and tried again. Ya know what? It fell into the same hole in the same spot!

So he closed everything up, we put the cross member on the roll-around (Minus rotors, calipers and backing plates for weight savings) and it's sitting under the front of the car just waiting to be installed tomorrow -- Hopefully.



I can hardly wait!!
(';')

 

Here it is a Beautiful Saturday morning, the sun is shining, I irrigated yesterday so everything is green and happy.

We thought this would be a good day to put the front suspension back under the car. True, there are 7 items that Must match up all at once, Perfectly, or it's a waste of time, but husband bought a new jack specifically for this purpose so we were confident of success.

Silly Us!

Everything was looking like it would work Just Fine until it came to matching up the rack with the lower column -- Which we bought one of, and I *Very* carefully attached to the upper column, wherein all the splines matched up, the pinch bolts dropped into their proper slots, and I was Jazzed!

However, the S3 rack (on which there is no king spline unlike the S2 rack) is about 90 degrees off (as seen by the previous post, it's properly centered)! I wondered about that while I was working on the two side by side, as it was plainly evident they were different.

So here we are, between the proverbial Rock and Hard Place; stopped in our tracks by one of the seven Must-Match components which won't.

I can't believe we are the first ones to have to change out a steering rack! How do we overcome this problem, short of grinding a notch all around the rack shaft??
(';')

 

Sorry, can't help you with that one Elinor. I hope someone else has had the problem and can give some advice.

 

Thank you anyway, Clarke,
Just today this all ceased to be fun.

I look at that car now with clenched fists and gritted teeth! It's become a JOB to be finished, from which I may or may not get satisfaction.
(';')

 

Elinor,

Just sent you a PM.

 

This ia the parts book copy I used long ago for reference, and the pipes are ALL of the opposite plane to the mounting lugs, and I donr reckon that LHD changed that layout.

 

Hi LnrB

I´m following your thread with great interest as I´m going to do exactly the same steering rack swap on my 1970 s1. The original rack has gradually become what I consider to be beyond reasonable repair, had the leaking temporarally fixed with a seal kit some years ago but then also noticed that some of the internal parts probably were quite worn out. Some minor oil sipping since then but has functioned ok.

Now, what is worse, during the last weeks and once the engine is warmed up, the servo assistance tends to work only in one direction.
Decided not to try another temporary fix and had the good fortune tofind a used rack and lower column from a XJ12 s3. Picked it up last week, seems to be in good order, no visible oil leak or excessive play anywhere.

Was prepared for, as they say, a direct bolt-in swap, maybe a one weekend job. But, obviously, after reading this eminent thread there is some more to it!

In your last post you mentioned some problems with matching the rack with the steering column. I`m not sure I have understood the problem correct so I went out to my garage for a closer look and for what I can see will the notches in the rack and upper column stub match, they will be 90 deg apart but, the important thing is that the end "eyes" in the main lower section is paralell. Otherwise you will get some very peculiar movements i the assembly. Don´t ask how I know.

Best regards
Jan

 

A true shot in the dark!!


1. The rack is centered. Neat way to assure that.
2. R & L tie rods equaled. clever way to assure that.
3. Right and left span of wheel turning. Issue to find center. Tape on wheel, go to full left lock. Note. position. Go to full right lock. Mark position. Return 1/2 way. Mark again.
4. Into the engine bay. Relation of lower spline to upper? Connect here. Wheel centered, rack and tie rods center. Oughta work.


5. Wild card. I don't know!!!


Carl

 

Thank you both for your responses.

Grant:
That parts drawing looks like an exact mirror image to our rack! The pipes follow the contours of the casting perfectly except that they come out of the tower in the front. It appears they merely flipped the mechanism end for end for LHD.

Jan:
No, this is NOT a simple bolt up change especially if you have Left Hand Drive! And we're not done yet! It appears the choice is either remove all those tiny pipes on the tower, take the pinion out, move it 2 teeth and Hope to get the pipes back without leaks, OR, take the steering wheel off, change it 1/4 turn and adjust all the turn signal triggers.

If I felt brave or had another expendable rack I would pull the tower and fiddle with the pinion just to see if I could. However, my bravery has already been forced Well beyond my comfort limits, there isn't a spare rack to practice on and I'm still hoping to actually drive the car sometime in 2015.

So we'll be pressing on later today. I will Certainly post the results; the Good, the Bad and the Ugly!
(';')

 

Thank you, Carl,
The rack was centered exactly according to instructions.
As the wheel is disconnected from Anything at the moment, there are no stops! It can't be connected to the rack in the wrong position. I thought there was no king spline, but there's certainly Something preventing the shaft from engaging the column!

We don't know either! So it's back to uncharted territory later today.

Watch this space for further developments.
(';')

 

I may have missed something, but.....

You do have the pinch bolt removed, right? I'm sure you do......but I had to ask.

The bolt is installed after the column is attached to the rack

Cheers
DD

 

How does the lower column attach to the upper column? Could it be adjusted there?

 

Doug:
Yes, the pinch bolt is not in the column.
I know you had to ask and I have no problem with that at all, you haven't missed a thing.

anjum:
The lower column attaches to the upper column by splines and pinch bolt in exactly the same way the rack attaches to the lower column, by splines and pinch bolt. The pinch bolt eliminates any adjustment; it either fits or it doesn't. The splines either line up Perfectly or the bolt refuses to drop through.





Close inspection of the splines has revealed numerous tiny flattened areas on the rack which were overlooked until we had trouble fitting them together. Husband spent a couple hours cleaning them up today.

Now that we know the wheel has to be readjusted we can proceed.
(';')