Paulc19

This is my first time buying any used parts from either scrap yards or part out cars but my 87 FC has developed a really bad leak that only seems to rear its ugly mug when the car is sitting. Not the lines, not the boots and if you put it up in the air it doesnt leak but when you leave it overnight suddenly theres a red puddle on your garage floor.

I figured I'd do a manual steering conversion because the PS cant leak if its not there anymore but a referb rack off ebay is like $450 without rods or brackets. Ended up finding a guy whos parting out his car and he has a manual rack ready to go:

My concern is because this is A; a used rack, and B; a safety item considdering this is how you stear the vehicle I want to make sure I do my diligence inspecting this thing so I dont end up sending my car off a cliff because the rack gave out.

Any tips on inspecting used racks? any bad experiences with used manual steering racks? I requested more pictures to see the rack boots and rod ends as well as the mounts because they seem pretty rusted. Should I even bother with this?

If i were to just get a refurb rack I would need to find brackets but I've looked high and low for manual rack brackets and couldnt find a darn thing.

Any advise is helpfull

WondrousBread

Here are a few things you can check:

- Tie rod boots should be untorn, no cracks, no grease coming out. These are replaceable without too much difficulty as long as all the joints are still good.

- Tie rod end should move, but be quite firm and have no slack or grinding in the ball-joint. Also replaceable.

- Inner tie rod can't be inspected with the boot on, but you should be able to move it around similarly to the outer and feel for any weirdness. I've heard the inner tie-rods on the manual rack are hard to find for some reason (do a search) so ideally try to get a rack with a good set. It's not difficult to replace them but you need to find the parts.

All of the above parts are easy to fix with minimal expertise. The remaining tests indicate a probable issue with the hard parts inside the rack, which means that you might need to find another manual rack to source replacements:

- Grab the body of the rack with one hand and a tie-rod with the other, then try and push it in and out. There might be some movement but there shouldn't be any slack. If it does start to push inward or outward look up and see if the pinion shaft is turning, in which case it's probably fine. If the rod end is moving in / out with no rotation of the pinion it means there is slop in the rack/pinion, or incorrect preload.

- Grab the body of the rack with one hand and the pinion shaft with the other and try to wobble it side to side, in and out, etc. There should be no slack here or the pinion bearings are worn.

- Grab a set of vise grips and a cloth. Put the cloth on the pinion and clamp the vise grips over it (to prevent damaging the splines), then rotate the rack end to end and make sure there's no weirdness. If there are any tough spots or weird noises then it probably needs a rebuild.

Paulc19

Absolute LEGEND! Thank you for this! As far as the picture I have, would the rust on the mounts be setting off any alarm bells? and if I want to get new mounts where would I get them for manual rack? Or are the interchangeable from the PS rack?

WondrousBread

They look like they're the same as the manual rack to my eye. I'm not certain since I don't have a manual rack. The rust itself wouldn't bother me in terms of safety, but it's worth removing the rust and painting them just so it looks nice and is more pleasant to work with. Or if they're interchangeable use the ones from your PS rack.

The rust on the mounts does mean that the rest of the rack was also subject to wet / salty conditions, but the inside of the rack is sealed by the boots. So as long as all the joints feel decent I would just give it a good cleaning and not worry about it.

Paulc19

Can anyone confirm whether or not the rack mounts on PS and manual are the same? I had a guy helping me with my car earlier today tell me to get new mounts and I assumed they werent the same but seeing as how I cant find anything labeled "manual steering rack brackets" im starting to doubt if they arent.

WondrousBread

Looks like the part numbers are identical:

Paulc19

Something I just noticed, I know you said the inner tie rods for the manual rack are hard to find but from the diagram you posted they appear to be the same part # as well.

Paulc19

So I bought the rack from the guy and noticed the right side boot was completly rotted away and had a ton of cracking. Just recently got the boots off as I intend to replace them anyways and found this on the right side:
A lot of it is just surface rust and the rack still goes from lock to lock but when you go all the way to left lock it stiffens a little (not a bunch but when you turn the pinion with pliers its noticeable), probably because the right boot was bad, letting in humidity and water and the rack teeth inside doesnt have much grease left, if you turn it all the way to left lock the rust on the inside quickly dissipates so I dont think the teeth in the rack are rusted. Has anyone tried to re-grease a manual rack and pinion and how would I go about doing that without disasembling the whole thing?
Figured all it needs is a clean up on the right side, grease the teeth in the rack, turn it lock to lock till it frees up a bit, new boots, inner and outer tie rods and its good to go.

WondrousBread

Yikes! That's pretty bad. I think it's probably fixable though.

I rebuilt a power-steer rack not long ago. There are a few differences but mostly the manual rack is just a simpler version of the power rack. There is also the procedure in the service manuals, although sometimes seeing actual pictures is easier.

Personally I'd get everything all the way disassembled. Clean rust in the least invasive way possible (electrolysis or evapo-rust, nothing too agressive). Shine the rack bar up a bit with some metal polish so it's smooth. Paint the body of the rack to take care of that external rust. Inspect the bearings inside to ensure they still turn smoothly. Then slather everything with a decent quality synthetic heavy grease and replace the tie rods and boots. Make sure to adjust the yoke preload as per the manual.

If it's still turning I'd be surprised if there's anything fatally wrong. The biggest thing is to make sure that all the teeth are present and the profile is still correct. A bit of surface rust can be cleaned away without any issues but any serious pitting might cause issues down the line as it wears in with the pinion.

Paulc19

Well unfortunetly I dont have anywhere to do any major disassembly atm as im in the middle of moving. Got no garage or even a concrete pad to work on. Dont suppose you know of anyone in the east TN area I'd be able to reach out too would you? If not im probably just going to have to wait it out till I get a new home with a proper setup but thats probably not going to happen for another 6 months.

WondrousBread

Unfortunately I don't. I'm in Ontario and around here it would be hard to find a shop that would touch it. Most of local shops would do a rack replacement, but wouldn't rebuild one. You might try calling a few local shops though and see if they can recommend anyone.