Help needed regarding removing track rods off steering rack
Discussion
I've been stripping down my old (leaking) steering rack and I'm as far as removing the track rods off the steering rack ..... and I'm stuck 
I can't shift either of the track rods off the ends of rack.
I've put the spanners on the slots and tried turning the ends (both directions) but nothing is shifting.
Do both ends come away from the rack (I guess they must do) and are they LHS thread or RHS thread (or one of each)?
I can see from the marks on the body of the rack and on the track rods that the rack has been apart at some stage in the past so there may be some sort of thread-lock used on it.
Any help would be much appreciated.
I can't shift either of the track rods off the ends of rack.
I've put the spanners on the slots and tried turning the ends (both directions) but nothing is shifting.
Do both ends come away from the rack (I guess they must do) and are they LHS thread or RHS thread (or one of each)?
I can see from the marks on the body of the rack and on the track rods that the rack has been apart at some stage in the past so there may be some sort of thread-lock used on it.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thank you!
Need to bookmark this thread. Especially if someones going to post pictures of a stripped down rack.
When I was looking at doing this the seals were nigh impossible to source so I have been putting up with a slight weep for some time now.
All I need is someone to post locations/prices and I think I'll hae a go.
When I was looking at doing this the seals were nigh impossible to source so I have been putting up with a slight weep for some time now.
All I need is someone to post locations/prices and I think I'll hae a go.
julian64 said:
Need to bookmark this thread. Especially if someones going to post pictures of a stripped down rack.
When I was looking at doing this the seals were nigh impossible to source so I have been putting up with a slight weep for some time now.
All I need is someone to post locations/prices and I think I'll hae a go.
This not good enough for you then Julian?? When I was looking at doing this the seals were nigh impossible to source so I have been putting up with a slight weep for some time now.
All I need is someone to post locations/prices and I think I'll hae a go.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Regard seals, I just use my local Brammer UK ltd branch, I bought the two seals for the distribution head and the one for the nearside of the steering rack, can't remember having trouble finding them???
I'm sure you know, you just need the 3 dimensions to source them. Inner, Outer and thickness.
http://www.brammer.co.uk/default.aspx
Rich.
Sorry Boosted I came to this thread after a while and didn't realise you'd done one.
Still very interested how you managed to get the final seal out of the rack. Unfortnately its that one thats leaking on mine.
If one was to damage the outer end of the rack behind the seal in order to get purchase would it affect the function of the rack after.
If you couldn't get purchase of any sort there are only three options I could think of. This assumes the body of the rack is aluminium and the seal is steel. These are methods I've sucessfully tried i similar circumstances down long black holes.
1) mount the whole rack on a long throw mill or lathe and actually machine it out. This would be problematic in the case of the TVR, because one false move and the seal would become the cutter for the aluminium, although I've done this before a number of times in a lesser hole. As long as you go slow with a very very sharp cutter it mostly works.
2) I have access to liquid nitrogen. On a number of occasions I've stuck stuff like this in the oven in my garage, and heated it up to about 60 degrees. Ive then poured liquid nitrogen (-198) down a metal tube in contact with the seal. Most of the time the differential in temp between 60 and -200 is so large the seal will fall out. This sort of differntial does have the ability to crack castings though so always a risk. To give you an idea of how effective this is, you don't need any more than finger pressure to do wheel bearings on cars!
3) The christ almighty method. You get a steel bar of a similar diameter to the central steel opening of the seal. You pu the steel stick into the rack down through the seal. You pass a dirty great current through the stick with the rack earthed. You can potentially do this with a simple car battery, but I did it with a tig welder attached to the stick. The stick becomes the electrode and welds itself to the seal. It wwould take a few pages to describe the possible pitfall of this but with a tig welder you can slowly ramp up the current till you spot weld the stick to the seal. In this case the fact the rack is aluminium is slightly protective for the rack.
I rekon one of those would sort the job, possibly a combination of 3) then 2).
Still would be interested to hear if you managed it.
Still very interested how you managed to get the final seal out of the rack. Unfortnately its that one thats leaking on mine.
If one was to damage the outer end of the rack behind the seal in order to get purchase would it affect the function of the rack after.
If you couldn't get purchase of any sort there are only three options I could think of. This assumes the body of the rack is aluminium and the seal is steel. These are methods I've sucessfully tried i similar circumstances down long black holes.
1) mount the whole rack on a long throw mill or lathe and actually machine it out. This would be problematic in the case of the TVR, because one false move and the seal would become the cutter for the aluminium, although I've done this before a number of times in a lesser hole. As long as you go slow with a very very sharp cutter it mostly works.
2) I have access to liquid nitrogen. On a number of occasions I've stuck stuff like this in the oven in my garage, and heated it up to about 60 degrees. Ive then poured liquid nitrogen (-198) down a metal tube in contact with the seal. Most of the time the differential in temp between 60 and -200 is so large the seal will fall out. This sort of differntial does have the ability to crack castings though so always a risk. To give you an idea of how effective this is, you don't need any more than finger pressure to do wheel bearings on cars!
3) The christ almighty method. You get a steel bar of a similar diameter to the central steel opening of the seal. You pu the steel stick into the rack down through the seal. You pass a dirty great current through the stick with the rack earthed. You can potentially do this with a simple car battery, but I did it with a tig welder attached to the stick. The stick becomes the electrode and welds itself to the seal. It wwould take a few pages to describe the possible pitfall of this but with a tig welder you can slowly ramp up the current till you spot weld the stick to the seal. In this case the fact the rack is aluminium is slightly protective for the rack.
I rekon one of those would sort the job, possibly a combination of 3) then 2).
Still would be interested to hear if you managed it.
Well if or Boosted did manage it I wonder if you would be kind enough to post the place and part numbers of the seal for eas ordering.
Selfish I know, but it would be nice to order everything in advance of taking it apart to save on downtime of the car.
Its so lovely driving it in this weather
Selfish I know, but it would be nice to order everything in advance of taking it apart to save on downtime of the car.
Its so lovely driving it in this weather
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