[DeTomaso] Steering rack adventures

[Asa Jay Laughton]

Just to clarify, there are two covers on the steering rack.  One covers 
the bottom of the pinion shaft and the other covers a kind of shoe that 
rides on the back of the rack and contains a stiff spring between it and 
the cover.

My assumption here is that you are adding/removing shims from that 
second cover that presses on the shoe.  In a situation where the rack is 
too stiff, and there are no extra shims to add, where does one find some 
shims?

Asa Jay

Asa Jay Laughton, MSgt, USAFR, Retired

& Shelley Marie
Spokane, WA

1973 Pantera L 5533
[ASASCAT]
    
******************************     
http://www.asajay.com
http://www.351c.info
  



Tomas Gunnarsson wrote:
> 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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