Hi
While pressing out one of the bushings on the steering rack (left hand side of car , RHD car) the pusher socket has cut a nice groove/chunk about 5 deep mm into the cylinder bore approx over a third of the bore diameter and approx 10mm wide
Is it possible to clean this up a bit and maybe fill it with a gasket sealer or similar and install the new poly bushes I have ?
I would like to do this as a temperary measure as I need to have the car driving for next weekend, a track day of all things!
Also is it possible to get the cylinder bore and damage machined out and have it re sleeved?
I will get a picture up tomorrow as it's dark here at the moment
I have spent 3 days in this job now.
Thanks
Willie

 

 

That's pretty deep.

Presumably the concern is whether the area is significantly weakened and is now subject to fracture....but I'm having a hard time remembering and visualizing how much 'meat' there is in that area. Gasket sealer or similar won't do anything to add strength if that, indeed, is where your concern lies.

I have an 'iffy at best' feeling about installing the bushing and driving the car.

Let's wait for others. I might be over-reacting

Cheers
DD

 

Thanks Doug
Just really wanting to see if it's safe to get the track day out of it!
This is the worst job I ever had to do on any car
The bushings were the jaguar sport upgrades that were in it
They were well seized in the rack,

As you mentioned the sealer idea is not fir strengthen it but just was going to try blend out the sharp edges and fill in the gaps so I won't ruin the bushings hopefully
I'll be putting the car away for winter and do have a spares car I can get the rack of next spring

 

I think your overreacting. I'd take the " elbow" part of a scribe and " burnish" the metal along the scratch smooth to prevent stress cracking and fretting. The potential failure would be from very small stress cracks developing along the scratch, burnishing the scratch will stop this from happening.

 

Thanks for the replys
I ended up filing the raised edge/burr that was left there from pressing out the old bushing then I spent some time smoothing it out with some 1200 grit paper
This is what I ended up with


I started installing the poly bushings!
What a nightmare I literally cannot get the two bushings cradled in the bracket to even fit into position
The bushings take a lot of force to get them to compress in fully together from each side and seem to want to pull apart about 10 mm and not stay in position
Is it possible I used too much grease and this is pulling them away?
Also I presume it's essential to use the washers which came with the kit? If I was to omit these and just use the bracket I can just about manage to get them to fit into position
Any help is greatly appreciated I am at wit send with this job!

 

my rack bushing were loose, so i decided to just machine aluminum bushings, a light press fit into housing and washers to take up any side movement!

been 20 yrs no rack movement,and a plus of instant steering response!

diffenitly a good move for a track car!

 

Just finished this job, what a pain it was
I ended up ditching the bracket and that gave me just about enough room to fit the washers
in, the bracket was fairly bashed up and was robbing me of any room I had