What a nice rack !

[Mr Cerbera]

Sorry for the title

BUT

I'm desperate

I've had "a bit of play" in the steering which has been steadily annoting and worrying me so I've decided to replace the Steering Column UJs.

Managed to get the 4 x 13mm pinch bolts out (Goodness knows how I'm gonna get them back in again)

BUT

Nothing dropped out

How on earth do you get the UJs / middle column bar out ??

The bar slides a little on the splines but not far enough to pop out and enable access to a UJ.

Please don't say that I have to unbolt the steering rack (Pretty please)

Any and all comments will be appreciated (as usual)

Ta !

PJ

Top UJ....



Bottom UJ....

[phazed]

You need to use a suitable drift, (cue old screwdriver or something similar to wedge in and open up the splined joints.

Gently tap and move them up the steering column spline and down the rack spline until you get the maximum movement.

You can clamp a pair of heavy duty mole grips onto the centre splined shaft and tap that in one direction so that it goes fully down towards the rack, it will then easily pop in to the top joint.

Not a particularly nice job but can be done with a bit of patience.

I don't know who supplies the cerb racks but if they are the same as the chim racks, they wear prematurely and there are no parts available.

I hope it is your universal joints and not the rack .

[pmessling]

Open them up as mentioned. And drift them out. There is room on the actual column to knock it to the car. There is a bearing in the bulkhead. The play may not be in the UK's mine was wear in the pinion

[Supateg]

The corners/shoulders of the new joints ‘may’ need grinding.

Think I posted many moons ago fitting a generic steering rack boot to protect them from the elements.

Edit:
Page 18 part numbers

Edited by Supateg on Saturday 2nd February 08:13

[phazed]

I just thought I would add that if it is the rack that has play in it and it is the same as the Chim rack then a conversion using a Subaru steering rack can be done.

Many of us Chim and griff owners have gone down this route.

[ukkid35]

The flat on the rack pinion where the bolt fits is so wide that when you tighten the bolt it distorts the coupling

That means that when the bolt is removed it is almost impossible to remove the coupling because of the distortion

I found it was just about possible to open up the coupling by using a wedge (screwdriver tip) and a club hammer to knock ten bells out of it

Not a very elegant way of removing precision steering components

[ukkid35]

Also, check this out when refitting the UJ

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Classic Chim]

If it’s anything like my Chim once I have freed the shaft up with the mole grip technique and loosened it from the joints I then found the best way to get enough movement to free the shaft off one of the knuckles or UJ was to loosen the steering rack bolts off about 8-10 mm which extends the length just enough to get the blighter apart. Marking the relative positions of the shaft orientation with steering column top UJ and bottom UJ saves having to remove it again 3 times to get it all lined up, 1 spline is enough to kick steering off centre. Dot punch is a good way to make it easy to line up later.

I also marked the position of the top UJ just inside the wheel arch when steering was dead central with a scribe. If the steering joints are set correctly the uj’s should both sit quite neutral with no real pull on one or the other so it’s important to keep that factory orientation with the two UJ when reconnecting them. Both should sit sort of flat and level in orientation to the steering wheel top UJ and again the lower one when rack is dead central the UJ should look square to the rack input shaft it’s directly connected to.

By getting this setting up right you can ensure the track control arms need very little adjustment to centre the steering and doesn’t use Any power steering to rebalance it.
If you just re track the car because the steering is out it will be using ps to compensate.

I’m sure we all know this but it all helps. It’s a bugger if a job, I used a builders metal wedge to crack open the UJ enough to let lube do its thing then it wasn’t so bad, I did use a hammer on the poor mole grips though

Edited by Classic Chim on Saturday 2nd February 21:15

ETA

Check first but when steering is straight the UJ clamp bolts on both top and bottom UJ should be in line with each other and sitting level where they pinch the steering shaft at either end if my memory is correct. If you punch mark the top position on both shaft and UJ then the same for the bottom end you can’t go wrong. All you have to do is then line one end up then the other making sure the marks are correct, the steering will be back to exactly how it was and won’t require any specific tracking most likely.
You will have loosened the rack so prob y best to get it done but the car should drive true enough. Loosening the rack for me made the second time I did it the best way and give me more wiggle room. The shaft is long onto the splines and requires a fair distance to detach it from at least one end, I think it has to come out the bottom one first but either way you need the shaft whacked right up into one UJ so you have less shaft to get out the other end. , i clamped mine tight so it stayed put while pulling the other end apart.

Hope some of that makes sense

Edited by Classic Chim on Saturday 2nd February 21:44

[ukkid35]

phazed said:

I just thought I would add that if it is the rack that has play in it and it is the same as the Chim rack then a conversion using a Subaru steering rack can be done.

Many of us Chim and griff owners have gone down this route.

Worth bearing in mind that the Cerb has a much faster rack than the Chim at just 2.0 turns lock-lock, so you'd probably want to replace with a similar fast Scooby rack which I think is 2.2 turns lock-lock

[phazed]

Which I believe is what I have. Hard to tell if you haven't got any lock stops!

[Stunned Monkey]

ukkid35 said:

The flat on the rack pinion where the bolt fits is so wide that when you tighten the bolt it distorts the coupling

That means that when the bolt is removed it is almost impossible to remove the coupling because of the distortion

I found it was just about possible to open up the coupling by using a wedge (screwdriver tip) and a club hammer to knock ten bells out of it

Not a very elegant way of removing precision steering components

!!! Thank You !!! I had the benefit of totally taking the whole stupid thing apart and hit this brick-wall. In the end, and without the enigne in the way, I cut the old joint in half just so I could take the rack out and get it on the bench, then used a gear puller to remove the infernal thing. So the moral of the story is not to over-tighten the new one. Duly noted...

fb.com/mys6cerbera

[Stunned Monkey]

To the OP: You know there's a level of "play" generated by the power assistance valving? The problem is the cerb doesn't provide enough assistance at low engine revs so you tend to haul on the steering and feel the springiness caused by the valves. Normally it'd give a little, uncover the appropriate holes and start assisting. Does this make sense? You'll also feel this "play" if wiggling the wheel when the engine isn't running.

[rev-erend]

Just so disappointed by this thread

[Byker28i]

rev-erend said:

Just so disappointed by this thread

Yeah but does she scratch the paintwork?
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/fast_n_bulbous/se...

[ukkid35]

Stunned Monkey said:

So the moral of the story is not to over-tighten the new one. Duly noted...

fb.com/mys6cerbera

Well Yes and No

I found the only way of removing all play from the entire steering assembly was to overtighten the UJ bolts

I even bought 12.9 bolts specially and then tightened them until just before the nuts stripped their threads (by trial and error)

I admit I was too cheap to buy a new UJ, perhaps a new one would tighten properly without leaving any play

I found that the best way to check where any play comes from is to have an assistant turn the steering wheel from side to side while checking each component in turn for movement

[Mr Cerbera]

Well, that didn't take long did it ?

and now I've found that the UJs have different diameters. 15mm for the steering shaft and 20mm for the Rack and Wheel ends

and you guessed it

The parts supplier I ordered them from, have supplied one unit with an incorrect diameter.

Life ?
(I'd probably break my hacksaw blade if I wanted to saw the end off my shotgun.)

Have a nice weekend out there in the motoring cosmos, everyone