Tasmin steering UJs

[chancenellie]

New owner here so apologies if this has been covered.My recently aquired 280 has very dodgy steering ,today I've removed,stripped and cleaned the steering rack and found no play or wear,it seems to have been previously reconditioned.The UJs on the lower steering shaft have a little play/wear so I will need/want to replace them along with ball joints and track rod ends. One end of the shaft has a has a bolted on UJ the other seems to be fixed.Racetech do the uj but I'm unsure as to the fixed end,any help is greatly appreciated.

[mrzigazaga]

Hi

The upper and lower ball joints are Cortina mk4/5
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UPPER-LOWER-BALL-JOINT-...
Same as track rod ends...
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=...

The upper and lower steering UJ's were just bolted both ends of the UJ as I understood it..Not sure who would have those now as David Gerald use to supply mine...You could try RT racing but you may need to measure the OD of the top column and joining shaft...and the length of the existing UJ's...

Hope this helps


Ziga

[phillpot]

chancenellie said:

One end of the shaft has a has a bolted on UJ the other seems to be fixed.

I think one or two early S series also had one UJ welded to the shaft?

"Easiest" fix could be find a replacement (splined both ends) shaft from a scrapper or new from somewhere like Rallydesign?

NB.. this is just an example, I have no idea if length is correct but various lengths are available with a bit of shopping around

[The Hatter]

I did this on my car, very difficult to find mating parts until I discovered Car Builder Solutions. CBS do shafts of different lengths and UJs to suit, I had to shorten the shaft slightly but the splined area is long enough to do that.

[SEvans]

Is this the UJ to the steering column to steering rack? Which steering rack do you have? Manual or PS? The splined shafts are different for different racks. Cheers Steve

[adam quantrill]

The top one is different also depending on your steering wheel pod arrangement.

On mine it was a triangular Ford Sierra/Granada jobbie, got one quite cheap for £16 but you have to shop around, I've seen them for 3x that.

There's also a bunch available here https://www.steering-racks.co.uk/ujs/

[wedgewood]

If you have an early Tasmin (Mines a 1984) The lower UJ was heat fitted to the shaft to create an interference fit. If you heat the UJ sufficiently with a blow lamp or welding torch the UJ will fall off. You will then need to get some splines cut in to the end of the shaft as I think all replacements are only available with splines. I did this about 15 years ago and it works fine.

[chancenellie]

I took the shaft to Dave Mac propshafts in Coventry yesterday,I use him for the Porsche steering shafts.He fitted two new UJs for £70.Collected it this morning and had the new ball joints and track rod ends were delivered so I'll be putting it back together tomorrow.Fingers crossed it drives in a straight line then.

[mrzigazaga]

Cool..Might be worth getting a 4 wheel geo done...here are the settings..

The tracking should be set at 3.2mm toe-in +/- 1.5mm

Caster: 3.5 - 4.0 deg. pos.
Camber (F) 1.0 deg. neg.
Camber (R) 1.0 - 1.5 deg. neg.
Toe (in) (F) 0.50 deg.
Toe (in) (R) 2MM - don't know why MM not deg!

2mm on 15inch rims = 0.30 degrees = 18 minutes
2mm on 17inch rims = 0.27 degrees = 16 minutes
Either way it's just a smidge toe in.

15 inch rims 3.2mm toe gives 0.24 degrees wheel to vehicle center-line or 0.48 degrees wheel to wheel.

14 inch rims 3.2mm toe gives 0.26 degrees wheel to vehicle center-line or 0.52 degrees wheel to wheel.

For the front
toe is 3.2 +/- 1.5mm
camber is 0 +/- 1.2 degres (not adjustable anyway is it?)
caster is 31.2 +/- 0.5 degrees
KPI 6 degrees
For the rear
toe is 4.5mm
camber is 0.5 +/- 0.5 degrees (this seems small as the wheels have a visible camber)

Hope this helps


Ziga

[chancenellie]

Thanks for that,I'll set the tracking up on my gear to make sure the car feels ok then I can get it set up on a Hunter 4 wheel set up