getting back on track.......

this looks somewhat better.....


no clunking now.....

one thing i did note.... there wasn't any dowels/location for fitting the ball screw mount to the motor when assembling the rack... there's holes through the various components (motor bearing mount, ball screw mount and end cover) so some pins were made up to align during assembly, and make sure there was no looseness/backlash between the motor and ball screw gears.....

one side was a small hole....
IMG_20190316_140618 by jon sutherland, on Flickr

the other side was a larger hole through the top 2 items, but a flatted hole cast in for the motor bearing plate....
IMG_20190316_140628 by jon sutherland, on Flickr

just to be awkward, so a pin was tweaked at the end.... ok, probably overkill, but, anyway, no backlash and everything moving fine!

re. the passenger side bush.....
IMG_20190316_141125 by jon sutherland, on Flickr

.....i decided to leave it as is for the time being, the play was minimal before i stripped it, and a good grease will lose that.... so i put the circlip back in.... btw.. if you get a 'knock bush' it'll just go in to the slightly larger stepped end (ironically circa 27mm, you know, standard industrial bearing size!!!)

so the rack is buttoned up and complete with new rack end knuckles, gaiters and steering ball joints! it's smooth with no knocking, brushes rattling or play anywhere. it's slightly stiffer, but that's down to the motor bearings now being new and tight, rather than 150k miles old rattly ones! i'll just have to be careful on the first few drives, making sure the self centreing is ok (a D1guy scare story on one of his messages! along with various references to 'bushings' when meaning 'bearings'!)

i can push the steering rack by hand, so steering geometry doing it should be fine!



....now i can get back to other stuff!!!!