I'm in process of changing my power steering pump and rack. I just put the rack in with a rebuilt one from Coventry West. I carefully lined up the steering wheel at the straight ahead position and measure the length to each tie rod end so I could get it close when I reassembled.

When I went to fit the new rack I found that the with the rack centered on the centering pin the slot of the steering column clamp bolt was about 180 degrees out. The only way I could find to put it all back together leaves the wheel upside down.

I'm going to call Coventry West tomorrow to see what they say but anyone have any similar story? Looking at the factory manual it appears I can just rotate the steering wheel but I find this odd.

Also, anyone know the dimensions of the o-ring on the hose at the back of the pump? I picked somethig close out but would like to know its right.

Thanks, Ben

 

IIRC there is a method of doing this so everything lines up and the turn signal cancelling works correctly.

Jack up front end of car off of the floor
Disconnect steering shaft from rack at joint
Disconnect tie rod ends from steering arms

Center the rack (side to side travel)

To center the rack : see "rack centering" in the shop manual

I usually remove the wheels for room to work

Remove the plug on the bottom of the rack
(Rack tie rod ends not connected )
Insert a small rod (nail etc) into the hole where the plug was
Move the rack side to side until you feel the notch inside the rack
At that spot the rack is centered -
mount the steering wheel so turn signals cancel correctly
remount the wheels
Now you should have the :
rack centered
wheels straight ahead
steering wheel properly positioned
Now connect steering shaft to rack
Adjust tie rod send to equal lengths as close as possible -
keeping wheels straight
Now connect the tie rod ends and reinstall the small plug.

Get a wheel alignment done to "fine tune" the front wheels

I am doing this from memory - early in the morning - hope I got it all right.

 

Um, the fitting in the back of the pump (high pressure side) should be a steel pipe with a double flare. (';')

 

Alyn:

I think the OP's problem is that the lower shaft will fit into the rack pinion in only one orientation due to the pinch bolt arrangement.

For some reason, Coventry West's rebuilt racks -- at least mine and the OP's -- come back centered, but with the pinch bolt groove in the pinion 180 degrees from the original factory orientation.

So the wheel ends up being upside down. So the only thing you can do is adjust the upper column, which is a royal PIA.

All I did was remove the wheel from the splines and centered it. The signals still cancel OK, just in a slightly different location than before.

 

Mine was 'only' 90 degrees off (not rebuilt, but S3 rack in S2 car), but like you, I pulled the wheel off and centered it in the closest splines, and signals work fine.
(';')