Steering Rack Mounting and UV Joint

[the_nutter]

Just rebuilding my steering rack and have a couple of questions:

- The UV joint seems to be one of those things conceived on a Friday afternoon after an extended session in the pub at lunch.  Is there a better UV joint with the same splines?

- I have a set of Polybush mounting brackets to mount the rack but see some others are using solid alloy mounts.  I assume this is to make the steering more responsive and have more feel, but is it necessary on what is primarily going to be a road car, and will vibration increase significantly as a consequence?

Thanks for any feedback.

[willcolumbine]

Yes the steering joint is a bit naff. Bill from Rarebits does a replacement solid one. As always theyre may be other suppliers etc.

Never tried using polybushes on the steering myself. I've got the red polubushes on my suspension and solid rack mounts and I don't think the vibration is excessive by any means. I'd just go for the solid mounts if I were you. You can always change them over for the poly ones it you're not happy but I very much doubt you'd want to!

[heraldcoupe]

willcolumbine wrote:

Yes the steering joint is a bit naff. Bill from Rarebits does a replacement solid one. As always theyre may be other suppliers etc.

I will jump in on this one with a proviso.
Having offered an uprated steering joint for the past five years, a handful of customers contacted me with problems in fitting these, with the assembly running extremely close to the suspension tower, with occasional contact. After a lot of head scratching, research led to two different part numbers being used for the pinion gear on the steering rack of the four cylinder cars. It turns out that one type has a longer shaft, so the coupling sits much closer to the suspension tower.
Take a look at the rack with original coupling installed. If the coupling sits within a few millimetres of the pinion housing, you will be fine using an uprated coupling. If there is a gap of half an inch or more between the pinion housing and coupling, you may have problems with clearance where the coupling sits further back towards the tower. Not all cars with the longer pinion are affected, some customers have reported using the coupling with a little metal removed by an angle grinder. That's not a recommendation, it's a statement of what has been reported to me - this modification  is at your own risk!
This is something I am warning all potential purchasers about. It may also be an issue with the six cylinder cars, but I have not been able to verify this for myself. In any case I would ask the customer to check on their own vehicle, many six cylinder cars have been fitted with the four cylinder rack by now.
There's no doubt that the majority of our cars used the short pinion, it took four years of selling these couplings for any problems to be reported, and out of 14 cars and racks I inspected here, only two have the long pinion.
Cheers,
Bill.

[rhodes]

My late 78 1500 (FH127xxx) has 7mm between rack and joint.  Never had any problem with this joint but the rubber mounts for the rack were awful.  It is now perfect with solid mounts.  Talk in the catalogues about extra vibration with solid mounts is nonsense.

[Richard B]

I was told that one problem with the aluminium clamps is a tendency for the rack to bend if the car is 'kerbed. The rubber & the polyurathane ones allow some complience and a bit more forgiving.

The aluminium ones are good for racing.