Steering rack failure

[LMH]

So who does make a high quality MGB style rack?
Where's Cam Gears LTD when you need them!
Larry

[Mark IV]

[quote=
Where's Cam Gears LTD when you need them!
k?Larry[/QUOTE]

Still in the UK....

[LMH]

I couldn't find a current listing for them still being an active company, much less still making a rack and pinion steering box. The original company was bought out by TRW in the 80's and operations moved to Spain. I don't know about after that though.
Larry

[CowtownCobra]

I recently replaced my (probably counterfeit ~2002) Flaming River steering rack with a new Flaming River steering rack. Say what you want, the new one is a heck of a lot better than the old one!

[MOTORHEAD]

There was some confusion as to what rack I had. The MG guy I bought the rack from 3 yrs ago said what I had was not an MGB rack because it has a short pinion shaft, and the MGB has a long shaft. I had forgotten that back then I had swapped out the long shaft for the shorter one from the original failed rack before I installed it. Once we got that straightened out, and I found my receipt, he sold me a new one at cost, and I did the pinion shaft swap again, took .6" off both tie rod ends, and installed it. Did a string alignment and road tested good. I'm going to post some pics and post again later with other observations.

Ted

[csx4017]

Running a Flaming River rack since 2009......no issues. Did not know Kirkham used an MGB rack?

[Mark IV]

Originally Posted by csx4017

Running a Flaming River rack since 2009......no issues. Did not know Kirkham used an MGB rack?

The MG rack from Cam Gears with the short input shaft was what AC Cars used back in the day.

[MOTORHEAD]

In the pics above, the rusty rack is the original for my car. It has been sitting outside in the weeds for several years. The pic looking at the end shows that bushing dissintegrating into what looks like cork crumbles, and the last pic shows the retainer washer that holds the bushing in,and it is covered with the "crumbles". So, the first two racks had similar bushing failures, but we don't know what the bushing material was. I now have #3 rack, from the same manufacturer installed and working fine, but for how long ? We (MG guy and me) pulled the r.h. boot on the new one to see what the new bushing looked like, and it was a dark grey plastic of some sort. I'm going to take the original rack to the MG guy (Glenn, of Glenn's MG Repair ) and see if he can go back to his supplier to try to find out what the bushing material is, and if it's been changed in the last few years.
I'll report back with any findings.

Ted

[MOTORHEAD]

Took the car up tp Glenns shop so he could have a look. The lower radiator hose lays against the rack mtg and may be heating the rack body in the area of the bushing is the only anommaly we can see. The bottom hose nipple makes an immediate 90 deg turn to clear the rack, but it is very close. the only thing I can do is try a different hose. Even so, I wouldn't think the bottom hose would get hot enough ( it's the cooled water returning to the engine ) to cause a problem. I'll have to get my temp gun on it to see the actual running temp.
Still don't know what the material the bushing is made of.

[YerDugliness]

just a thought...I am dealing with a crapped out power steering pump right now and was told that I would also need to replace one of the hoses. Apparently there is a "bulge" in one of the hoses that contains a filter for the PS fluid...of course, if yours is a manual rack, that won't have any relevance. If you DO have PS, perhaps you might check to see if one of your hoses even has the filter...that could be why yours looks like it does with all of those small particles...they would be much larger than what the filter would pass.

Good luck...

Cheers!

Dugly

[MOTORHEAD]

Dugly; No pwr steering, the pics with the particles all over are the rack housing and the tie rod inner joint.

Ted

[LMH]

Question for you guys who know about MGB racks. It appears new racks can have quality issues. Have any of you bought original Cam Gears Ltd MGB racks and rebuilt them? Are there parts made to rebuild original Cam Gears racks?
I’m just wondering if this is the way to go besides buying an aftermarket rack.
Larry

[Morris]

Motor

I know there is a inherent problem with the steering on the Kirkham’s and CSX series of Cobras. The bump steer on those cars is as much as 1/2” in 2 inches of travel in the suspension.

So every time the suspension moves into bump or rebound, the forces on the rack are coming from the steering arms pushing the rack as much as 1/2” in either direction (pushing and or pulling). This amount of bump steer is to much....the allowance is .015” per inch of travel.

So it doesn’t surprise me that the bushings in the end of the rack are deteriorating to the degree that your photo’s showed.

When back in 2004 I explained all of this to Tom K. And He redesigned the uprights so they could remove a lot of the inherent bump steer and I know Tom got it under control,

On KMP259, we completely removed the the MG rack and Tom sent me the new uprights and we built a Appleton Rack at a certain length and were able to eliminate the bump steer issue.....I think we ended up with .030” over 4” of travel.

Sorry for such a long post......but there’s no quick way to say it all.

[cdnus]

Morris
Now I understand why many of these high end replicas seem to have very few miles on them when offered for resale. That much bump steer would make them unpleasant to drive.
Craig

[moore_rb]

The MGB rack in my Unique recently failed the same way Motorhead's did. My car went 5600 miles on the first rack.

While researching whether to rebuild my rack, or just replace it, I found these discussions talking about the bushings on an MG forum:

Steering Rack Service : How-To Library : The MG Experience
Steering Rack Bushing Replacement - solved : MGB & GT Forum : MG Experience Forums : The MG Experience

Inside the boot on mine, the RH side looked very much like the photos Motorhead has posted. Nothing but grease and grit- no sign of any bushing remnants. I did notice that my RH boot was torn inside one of the grooves, and the MG guys all said that it does not take very much road grime inside there to chew those soft bronze bushings up real good....

So, I went ahead and ordered one of the Moss/Argentinian replacement racks for my car, and since all the other components are still good on the rack I removed, I plan to order new boots and rebuild it, so that if the new one also fails prematurely, I'll have a standby replacement ready for service.

But, I may forgo the bronze bushing on the rebuild, and might make my own bushing out of PTFE instead, and then fill the rack with Silicone grease instead of petroleum grease....

[Morris]

Originally Posted by cdnus

Morris
Now I understand why many of these high end replicas seem to have very few miles on them when offered for resale. That much bump steer would make them unpleasant to drive.
Craig

It is a bad feeling when you are in a turn and hit a bump......and then the car moves over another lane (or worse yet,as you put the wheel right on the apex and as the chassis moves into bump, the car moves over away from the apex) .....and you did not turn the wheel.....

[joyridin']

If you still have problems after all said and done, check out a Stiletto Rack and Pinion manufactured by Strange Engineering. I replaced my MG unit with one of those. It works great.