FD Power Steering FULL manual conversion write up
 

The topic of this has been gone over a few times and ill include links to a few of the threads for those thinking if this is right for them or not. I did this on the Rack of my red FD, which is finishing up heading into purpose built drag car. SO there’s no PS pump, so might as well not fight fluid in the rack if I don’t have to.

This write up will not be in full detail since my hands were covered in grease and if you have enough talent to get the rack out, you’ve got more than enough to do this conversion. I alredy used my brake bleeding vacuum pump to suck the rack what I thought was dry while turning the wheel. The rack still had over a quarter bottle of ps fluid in it….

The rack is held on to the sub frame with 4x 14mm bolts that go from the bottom in. Don’t sweat having a inner tie rod tool as once you have the rack off you can get them off much easier than while still on the car. Getting the tie rods off you can use a tie rod fork (10$ at pepboys) or if you hit the area on the spindle right around the tie rod it pops right out. But the fork will be the easiest for most on here. The Quill come off from the steering Colum once you loosen the 12mm bolt holding the spline shaft. A 12 and 14mm wrench will take the hard lines off the rack. You don’t have to worry about using a tubing wrench, there not in there super tight.

I’m going to start this write up from the rack out of the car, with all lines and inner tie rods removed.
Should look like this

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226745&stc=1


On the flyingmiata site they remove the carrier first, I personally leave this to last just for shaft support reasons.

First things first, remove the dustcap (pulls off) and under the lovely peanutbutter colored grease there is a C clip remove this C-clip

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226746&stc=1

Next turn over the rack, and remove the cap on the bottom (think it was 22mm) this will expose the quill retainer nut.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226747&stc=1


Remove this nut. You don’t have to worry about the Quill falling out b/c the carrier and the lower bearing have a pretty good hold on it.
https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226749&stc=1

Next flip over the rack, you are now going to remove the large lock washer around the large hex nut. (I used channel locks since my ¾ in drive with all the big boy sizes was forgotten @ home.)

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226750&stc=1

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226748&stc=1


Now unless you actually have a hex drive that large its time to fab up a SST

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226751&stc=1



Amazing what a extra lug nut, random bolt and MIG welder makes ; )

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226752&stc=1


Remove the large hex nut, under which will be a spring and the carrier.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226753&stc=1


Now move on to the left side of the rack, there is a little eyelet in here is where the retainer wire is.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226754&stc=1

Turn the end cap counter clock wise and you will see 1 end of the wire comes up and out of this access port. Keep turning counter clock wise until you get it all the way out, the other end has a small hooked tip that holds it onto the retainer, comes right off…

From there a few light taps around the edges with a small mallet it comes right off.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226755&stc=1

You into the home streach,
Tap the quill (on the bottom where you removed the retainer nut, and it will come right out (have a hand on it so you don’t drop it)

from here you going to have find something sutable to go in the side of the shaft by the quill so you can tap the rack out the far end. There is a small seal in there that needs some persausaion to come out. I used a piece of Almnium rod as to not damage anythgin.

Now using a suitable cutoff tool cut almost all the way through this, its hard steel so don’t think your going to get through it with a chisel with ease
Should look like this when done
https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=226756&stc=1
https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=226757&stc=1

There’s 2 ring retainers you can pry off

Now hit the parts washer, or if your not blessed with one clean off all the old grease the best you can.

On the flying Miata site the re-lube b4 putting it back in, personally I put it back in then re-lubed.

Re assembly is nearly identical to removal, I swapped the steps a bit but..

1- steering shaft back in
2- quill
3- quill retaining nut
4- C-clip on top of quill
5- Carrier, spring, hexnut (forgot the torque specs but don’t make it tight… turn the quill with your hand to find the right tension for yourself. You can make it easier or harder it turn the rack. I went a bit tighter since ill mostly be driving in a straight line ; )
6- Pipe cap that covers quill retaining nut
7- Retaining cap and retaining spring ( instillation is just opposite of removal, just put the little hook in the hole and go counter clockwise until its all in)
8- dust cover

reinstall tie rods, reclamp boots


Cut the hose ends off and fill them with a bit of weld….
https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226758&stc=1

TADOW you’re done….

I know Manville Charges 270 for this but I think that’s not deducting 50-60 for the core, and they clean it up. I don’t know if that includes shipping or not. But ill be happy to do it for 125 plus shipping. Since I have mine off the car for at least a week or 2, turn around will be 1 day. After than 2 day max turn around time for anyone who wants it done.

Ill do the full conversion, re-grease everything, weld all the nut holes, clean the whole rack, and do a little touch up where it’s needed. You can send it with or without the tie rods, if it needs a boot or anything you’ll be paying whatever Ray charges me.

Any Questions feel free to post up

Bacon7299@yahoo.com

Thanks for the write-up!

Ohh b4 anyone says it, I did this in the middle of finishing building a trailer, yes the workbench was a mess. But it got all cleaned up…
https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-gen-archive-72/how-de-power-your-steering-rack-right-way-440198/
http://flyinmiata.com/tech/depower.php?x=1
https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ighlight=Maval

Great writeup, thanks a ton!


-s-

Great timing...I planned to do this very soon

Thanks for the write up Bacon!

Oliver

Did you weld the quill shaft?

Well that’s something I need to call maval and ask what they actually weld. I didn’t see any thing that needed to be welded or could be improved on. The quill was solid and had no deflection in it, I’m going to be doing another one in a day or so and ill take a little more time ad disassemble the quill to see if I can find it on my own. In regards to strength, the quill is plenty strong, Id be more scared of parts in the steering shaft failing first.

Glad this is helping a few out there, was driving me nuts the miata guys had one but we didnt LOL

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226768&stc=1

Everything I saw while it was out, and can see from documents I dont know where to weld...or what part of the quill shaft their welding

You may not have seen flex with the system disassembled, but install it with 1500 pounds on the tires and leverage from the steering wheel...

No pics any longer, but these might help:
https://www.rx7club.com/showpost.php...02&postcount=5
https://www.rx7club.com/showpost.php...30&postcount=5

Found a picture!

Easy enough, going to need to pull it out and weld it tonight, Quill shafts will be welded here on out, No Additional charge naturally ;)

Sounds like a deal. I'm not about to pull my rack now, but might have to do that next winter.

Does anybody have this done on a daily driver? Comments?

excellent write-up!! i'm planning to do this as soon as the chaos that is my life dies down. thank you for taking the time to shine some light on this.

Why did you cut this? I just removed the seal. If you dont cut it you can undo the entire mod for the price of a new seal. Other than that, nice writeup :)

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=226756&stc=1

Bacon, Great write up. For all those guys out there thinking pulling the rack is a straight forward job, I thought I would share a few comments about my experience.

For my car, it was not as straight forward as the FSM indicated it would be. I ended up having to pull my PS pump and AC unit in order to get to the bolt that holds the top line on the PS rack itself. I also had to drain my radiator and remove the lower radiator hose in order to be able to rotate the PS rack and slide it out of the car. And oh yes, I had to loosen all (4) bolts that hold the front subframe in place in order to drop the engine down to get the rack out. I'm still putting my rack back together (had to repair it due to leaks...not a manual conversion), and don't look forward to putting it back in the car.

I'm not a master mechanic by any means, but I have a nice shop in which to do the work and a good set of tools. Still was not the easiest job for me.

Perhaps this is what Bacon is alluding to this in his comment, "...if you have enough talent to get the rack out, you’ve got more than enough to do this conversion."

Richard

Great timing on this. I actually have my steering rack out right now, all cleaned up and ready to take apart. I was actually going to shoot some pics of the various steps and team up with Railgun to do a write-up, but I guess now we don't have to.

Instead of cutting the hard lines and welding them I was going to try finding some brass plugs. Not sure how easy they might be to find, but they would let me save the hard lines and revert back to P/S if I ever wanted (doubtful, but you never know). Either that or I could sell them off to someone in need.

thanks,
Mike

I’m not worried about ever needing to go back. Also since I was planning on welding the tube nuts, the thin gap where the seal was would still be buffered by the air in the part of the rack. Just additional weight savings lol.

Prob could just pull the seal, but I don’t remember seeing the seal on the parts fiche

I’ve pulled the rack off a complete car b4, such a PIA, my car is 99% stripped down getting ready for paint so it took me about 20 min to pull the rack, and 10 min was jacking it up and pulling the front wheels LOL But your 100% right , if you can get it out, this is a cake walk.

Thanks for the comments guys, I had been seeing this pop up here and there for a while so I figured some body needs to take a few pictures while doing it, I should have taken a few more but just got into getting it done and forgot for as bit b/c it was going so quick LOL
Ill post up some pics on the quill welding.

Ohh brass plugs would work great, its just tough to resist welding stuff when the welding machine’s sitting there staring at you LOL :)

This is one of those mods you like...... I’m done already???....only part that stumped us for a minute was getting the rack out (when I say rack I’m referring to the internal rack. didn’t want to foul the inner tie rod threads, so I was being to gentile with the hammer at first

I still would like to find out how this compares to a looped line in effort and feel of the wheel? Anyone?

Good job Bacon. I want to see the pics of the welded quill, get before and after weld photos please.

great job !

tom

Good write up...

very good stuff! mavel is either be happy they dont see fd racks anymore or mad that they are losing on business. great job.

I got my Maval rack back and it looks brand new. They do a great job but you definately pay for it over doing it yourself. It cost me $40 to ship it to them plus $270 for them to ship me back my new manual rack. Turn around was just the time it took to ship. So my total cost was $310 and 8 business days (I am on the other side of the country from them).

Kudos for taking the time to write this up. Had I seen it before I did mine I probably would have went this route! However, I am satisfied with the Maval rack, for sure.

Here is to manual steering! When, if ever, I get to steer my car (not including pushing it myself) down the road again!

As promised
For the quill you need to have a bearing splitter, disassembly is outlined in the FSM, after you get the upper bearing off its just moving down the quill, yet again I got ahead of my work. Little TIG on both sides : )

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=227910&stc=1

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=227911&stc=1

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...d=227912&stc=1

LOL maybe they would get more business if they stop jacking the prices up. This mod use to be a lot cheaper a couple years back.

do you actually need a new seal for the manual conversion or do you just reassemble the rack without it? thanks

I doubt they care. Their main business is producing custom aftermarket racks, not modifying stock ones. :)

When I first negotiated with them on a price for the conversion (~$165 + $60 core) several years ago, I told them there would probably be more people interested in it, but I could tell they didn't really believe me. Same with the Cobra/RX-7 hybrid axles at The Driveshaft Shop; now they have a part number for my axles listed on their RX-7 page. :p:

What people aren't considering is that Maval is providing new rubber boots instead of stock plastic boots, they clean and paint your rack, and they replace any parts that are worn or damaged. Sure, you can do the modification cheaper yourself, but you'll probably be reusing parts you should have replaced, you'll still have the same old shitty plastic boots, and you'll scrub and paint your own rack.

If your time is worth more to you than what Maval charges, then send them your rack. If it isn't, do it yourself. Pretty simple.

No seal. You want the rack to move freely from side to side.

its soo offtopic but had to ask sorry guys!! i am thinking about removing my a/c off my car but someone told me that you cant just take a/c off since the compressor and p/s is connected together, so is this true guys? and if so what do i do to get the a/c off?

You need to get the Freon recovered, then you can remove the ac pump, or just by pass it if that’s easier. You’ll need a different belt, I think it was a 32pk5, take a string and loop around the main pulley, the tensioner and around the power steering pump, and take that measurement to local parts store and get the proper rib belt in that length.

Many f the mfg’s use the size as the Pn# like 32PK5= 32 inch 5 rib belt. Its going to be a oddball size, ill see if I have my belt laying around so I could give you the right size.

Nice

Has anyone had Bacon do this conversion? Cant get ahold of him. So I think I'm going to try this myself this weekend.

Something to add,,, an easier way to remove the seal, hold the rack verticle on a piece of wood, seal side twords the ground.

wack the seal with a hammer till if breaks off. Should take 3-5 hits.

Ive done this a couple of times and never damaged the rack (not that a scrach bur on this part of the rack would do any harm) and its much faster and easier than cutting it off.

I just finished my rack conversion this past weekend. Was not bad at all. One thing that is not detailed is the removal of the tie-rods from the rack. There is a palstic boot over each one, with a spring clamp. Remove the clamps and pull the boots back off the tie rods. This is hard to do, the plastic boot is really stiff. Once the boots are slid back you will see a keeper plate. Bend the tang back up so you can loosen the tie-rod and unthred it from the rack. I just did the short side and pulled the long side out, tie rod and all.

Also I welded up the Quill with 6011 rod, DC reverse, 90 amps. Perfect !!

To get the Quill prepared, you must remove the bearing, a small snap ring, the seals and a small O-ring under them. Then weld the quill up and replace everything. Feels GOOD !


I got a ton of pics.


later

I'm stuck removing the tie rod. How did you bend that washer up? My thinnest, smallest flat head wont fit under there. Post pics when you get a chance, I'm also taking a bunch.

I got that washer bent back up and the tie rod off. Any suggestions on getting this bastard off? I dont have a welder so I cant do what Bacon did. I found a bolt that fit and tried to freeze a nut on it, but I ended up having to tighten it so much that I broke the head of the 10.9 grade bolt off.

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/5230/dsc02038lj8.jpg

I dont know what kinda hammer you have but I was beating the shit out of that seal and all it did was dent and bend the seal. Finally after 20 minutes of beating on it, grabbed the dremel and it sliced through it like butter. :icon_no2:

I'm working on finishing up my manual conversion and was wondering about whether it is required to reinstall the seal rings after welding the quills? Seems like you may need to clearance the first ring after welding as there is not much clearance there anyway, so why reinstalling something that's not doing anything nor supporting the quill. Looking for anyone else's thoughts.

Anyone? Taking the quill to be welded today...

I'm sorry, but this is a TERRIBLE idea and, not could, but WILL eventually cause a wreck because of steering failure. I just started working with Hydraulic Power Steering for Automotive Components Holdings, LLC. I saw this writeup last night an didn't think that it was a very good idea to do it, but I had to make sure before I posted something on here without any relevant information. I asked two guys (independently) that I work with, one with 30 years of power steering expierence (R&P), and the other with 34 years (R&P and RV (recirculating ball nut, like the FB has)), and both of them said that it was a terrible idea.

First of all, a power R&P Pinion (what you guys call a "quill" *shakes head*) is only case hardened, not through hardened. The only reason why there is even a pinion in the power racks is so you have road feel. They are not designed to handle long term manual use. All of the steering comes from the hydraulic fluid pressure on either side of the piston (the part that you are cutting through and breaking off the actual rack). Once you remove the hydraulic power, it's only time before the pinion teeth shear and you've lost ALL steering.

Second of all, if you don't weld the input shaft to the pinion and rely on the torsion bar (it's a torsional spring that is pinned at the knurled end of the input shaft and pressed into the top of the pinion) to steer the car, that WILL break before the pinion has time to wear to the point where it breaks. I just finished up testing on current production t-bars, and they are designed for use in a high travel valve (+- 12 degrees, +- 2 degrees during evasive manuvers). These were breaking after 20k cycles at +- 15 degrees of travel. This may not seem like alot, but the ONLY use of the t-bar in a hydraulic setup is to actuate the valve to route fluid pressure. When you go to a manual rack, the t-bar and the pinion are both used to steer the car, and they are designed accordingly. Typical road manuvers (lane changes, low speed turning) use 1-2 degrees of t-bar deflection, and during parking manuvers you're only using 7-9 degrees of valve travel (which equates to 7-9 degrees of t-bar deflection). If you're using this setup in an auto-cross situation with manual steering, you're be easily seeing 20+ degrees of t-bar deflection. This will give you EXTREMELY short lifespans. At +-17 degrees of travel (albeit on a non-heat-treated t-bar), you're looking at between 1250 and 2250 cycles to COMPLETE (t-bar in two pieces) failure.

Third, welding the input shaft to the pinion, which is safer than using the t-bar to steer the vehicle, is another terrible idea. These parts are hardened, and by inducing uncontrolled, mass amounts of heat (which is needed to weld something that thick solidly) will destroy the heat treatment around that area. This will give you two extremely weak points (one on either side of the weld) that could contribute to steering failure.

Now onto other things that you've done to mess with a steering rack. The "retainer" or whatever you called the part between the "nut" and the spring. That is known as the yoke. This part's function is to counteract the gear separation force between the pinion and the rack. It is precisely set to a certain clearance to keep friction to a minimum, while keeping the pinion and rack teeth in contact and still allowing grease to lubricate the rack to yoke interface. If you wrench this down all the way, you will increase effort substantially, induce un-needed friction, and cause the yoke to suffer excessive wear. Also, by increasing rack friction, you're either causing the t-bar to load up more, which, once again, substantially reduces the part's life, or adding alot more stress on the pinion teeth, which will cause them to fail even more quickly.

So, from my point of view after working for a little while with power R&P, and talking to two guys that are regarded as the geniuses of the group (the guy that has 34 years is a physics major that doesn't use a calculator to calculate contact ratio, rack speed, piston area required for a certain parking force, etc, and he designs the gears for the rack and pinion and the sector and worm for RV gears), that this is a very dangerous conversion and that anyone that values their lives, the lives of the people around them, and their car, wouldn't ever consider doing.

This is my $.02. Take it as you wish, but know that this isn't someone just spouting off, the data that i sited for the t-bars I just finished up collecting and analyzing last week, and that the sources of all the other information about the dangers of the pinion are from two guys that have a combined 64 years of expierence with R&P and RV gear steering.

From a truly calculated engineering standpoint, you are probably right. But look how many people have been running Maval and homemade racks for years with zero problems....? I'll take my chances. :)

All I can say is Good Luck, and hope that you're on a straight, flat road making a lane change when something breaks so you can slow down and not destroy your car/yourself/someone else.

So how come with the thousands of looped racks and full manual converted (Maval and homemade) racks, we haven't heard of a single failure? :uhh:

i don't know, but that comment was menat to be a "hope you don't get hurt when things go awry with your modification" comment.

I understand where whitey85mtu is coming from.

The thing I started to realize is that street driving is un predictable... What I mean is that there might be a case when you might hit something on the road at high speed and could completely affect the parts you are modifying. Obviously that could be anything (and could be OEM parts). But Ultimately is this something we all want to take the risk.... of either killing ourselves or those surrounding us.

I thought about doing a manual rack at one point, but decided not to for many reasons.. and what whitey85mtu stated might be another reason not to do. I personally don't see much gain unless, I get into competitive level of racing and need that extra 'feel' or to save extra weight.

But we all do what we want to do with these cars and take what ever the risk we take when we are on the road...

You raise some good points but I have to take issue with a couple things.

First, welding is known to be a perfectly good way to join two pieces of metal, you cant tell me that there is enough force on the steering shaft to worry about the strength of the heat affected zone.

Second, the t-bar is made to twist, thats how the valve is actuated. so how is this twisting any different than the twisting it undergoes with no hydraulic pressure? there are also stops that prevent it from over travelling with no pressure, for example if your belt broke while driving.

The pinion gear is not through hardened. how long do you think it will take to wear through the hardened region? Im betting it will be a long long time. It is also made for this force because it must push against the rack to twist the t-bar to open the hydraulic valve, so its not just for road feel.

You make some excellent points. What about doing a loop line? I realize that this still might cause added stress to the system but would it be a better alternative to this?

Someone asked but I didn't see an answer... how much less effort does this take than a looped system? Any side by side comparisons?

Actually, welded DOES weaken the part and completely negate the heat treating in the area directly next to the weld. I don't know about you but when I am going 80 mph around a sweeper with slicks, I think there is a lot of force on the steering.

remember on one end of this welded chunk of steel is your hands. so there is no more force on it than you can hold on the steering wheel. are you telling me you could snap the shaft with the torque on the steering wheel just because it lost its heat treating?

What I did to mine - where the lines used to be

later