[DeTomaso] Steering rack adventures

[Tomas Gunnarsson]

I'd like to add that although there are differences between the racks (as I found out when Thomas Törnblom rebuilt his -84 GT5 rack around the same time as I did my -71 rack) this particular adjustment is similar if not identical between the two.

Tomas

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Charles McCall" <charlesmccall at gmail.com>
To: "pantera forum" <detomaso at realbig.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 12:25 PM
Subject: [DeTomaso] Steering rack adventures


> Hi all,
> 
> Ever since I bought my GT5-S, it has tramlined fairly badly. The car has
> been a handful to drive, particularly on bad roads. Under hard braking, the
> car would dart from side to side - not pull to one particular side, but
> would go left-right-left-right requiring constant correction.
> 
> Last year I installed offset bushings up front, which improved the situation
> greatly, although not completely.
> 
> At Le Mans this year, Mike Drew pointed out that I had all kinds of play in
> the steering system. The car has more or less always been like that, so I
> had not particularly noticed. But he was right - there was all kinds of
> play.
> 
> Taking advantage of a visit by Tomas Gunnarsson this week, we just came in
> from looking at what was happening. Basically, one tire (passenger side) was
> nice and tight, but on the driver's side, turning the wheel resulted in
> up-and-down movement of the tie rod instead of side-to-side. There was lots
> of play on this side tire, which allowed all kinds of weird toe in/toe out
> settings, depending on the position of the wheel. Tomas was hoping that it
> was just a adjustment issue - there are a series of shims that basically
> adjust between binding the steering rack and allowing free play between the
> rack and column.
> 
> Off came the cover and we found 4 shims inside - one thick and three of
> various (thinner) thicknnesses. We reinstalled the cover with NO shims and
> found that the steering rack now was binding, but there was zero play. A-ha!
> To make a long story short, we experimented, adding shims until we got no
> binding, then removing them until it bound, and adding one more to get
> minimum clearance. My steering rack is now completely tight, with no play
> whatsoever, perhaps for the first time in the history of the car!
> 
> What I found amazing was that this steering rack was assembled this way.
> Tomas has two possible explanations - during assembly there was some dirt of
> something in the assembly which meant that the rack was ok when bench
> tested, but when installed and driven this dirt broke down and opened up all
> kinds of clearance, allowing lots of play. Or, the rack was just badly
> assembled from day one, installed, and nobody ever looked into it.
> 
> Note that early steering racks and late steering racks are apparently quite
> different, but those of you with late model cars, if you have play in your
> steering wheel the fix could be free and could be done in a couple of hours.
> 
> 
> Anyway I'm a happy camper as I had been mentally preparing myself for buying
> a new steering rack... we just came back from a short test drive and it
> feels like a new car. The darting under heavy braking is gone, and the
> steering is now rather direct, as it should be.
> 
> Your mileage may vary...
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