New damper yokes are NLA now.
Nick,
How did the reclaimed one go (which I built the lower end up 1mm with nickel bronze)?

_________________
DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Thanks mate. That is good to know even from the point of view of confirming there is enough space to route something like that up to an easily accessible spot. I'm not after freebies so don't look too hard, I was going to visit somewhere like Pirtek this morning and waste some of their time anyway.



Hey Kev, your damper yoke went well. It was probably almost a little too thick and I almost worked up the energy to change over the chucks in the lathe but I ended up needing another shim for the pinion so I had to visit my local mini guy who had a bent rack out of a wreck that he raided the shims from and now all is good. It feels pretty good now that it is all assembled and I ended up using a bit over 200mL in the rack as there was a couple of spillages when the air bubbles came up. Just working on finishing off the paint job this morning.

I ended up replacing the pinion bearings as well as although the races on the old bearings looked fine, once I assembled it and started working out shims and turning the pinion, the feel was notchy and not smooth. I tried to find the bearings locally from four bearing shops and they all remaked at how weird the were and then told me they couldn't find them. I could only track down cheap chinese bearings that don't even have a manufacturer name printed in them (seriously? the manufacturer has so little belief in their product they don't even stamp their name into them???) despite my willingness to pay for decent bearings. After talking with my local mini guy he reckoned you can't buy anything but the chinese bearings now unless you pull apart old racks and look for better bearings than what I had.

Anyway, once it was all assembled and oiled up (I bought 140 mono) it feels pretty nice. Just finishing off the paint job and replacing the bushes in the steering column while I am in this area.


^Ready for putting back in the car - reassembly is the reverse of removal. Hopefully I don't scratch too much of the paint off putting it back in the car.


^Pulled the column apart and gave it a paint.


^Hmmm, maybe this is why there was some movement in the column as well, not to mention the ID of this bush fits the column like a hotdog in a hallway.

_________________
"In two years time your car will be like a lady's clothes, out of date, my car will still be in fashion when I am dead" - Sir Alec speaking to Pininfarina

TK, don't worry about looking now. I went down to Pirtek and got a remote grease nipple, some line and a 90° M8 elbow thingy that fitted the grease line and I faced off the area where the cardboard gasket thing seats and ran a die over it to 5/16-24 (5/16" UNF). Works well and I only had to enlarge an already existing hole 0.5mm in order to fit the remote grease nipple.

I don't know why everyone doesn't do this - makes greasing the remote change so much easier (especially for me with LCBs, twin carbs and a mech fuel pump). If people are interested the 90° elbow is easy to chuck up in the lathe (if you want to be really pedantic and face the sealing area smooth like I did) so if you are keen I can buy some more fittings if you want and post them to you. Can also post a pic of where I machined if you want to see.


^This hole already existed beside the hydro line. Had to go 0.5mm larger in diameter.

^Connection on the remote housing.

^Gave it a test run and the magic pixes transported grease from my grease gun until it came out of the linkage (as you can see in the piccy).

_________________
"In two years time your car will be like a lady's clothes, out of date, my car will still be in fashion when I am dead" - Sir Alec speaking to Pininfarina

Nick, where did you source the Chinese bearings from?
The only pinion bearings I can find to fit a Mini rack now (after searching the web) are from John Smidt. He still has NOS Marina ones, and CNC machined cups to adapt them to a Mini rack.

_________________
DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Kev, I got the bearings from John - I just assumed they were Chinese from the lack of markings. At least they are ok bearings.

_________________
"In two years time your car will be like a lady's clothes, out of date, my car will still be in fashion when I am dead" - Sir Alec speaking to Pininfarina

They are NOT Chinese bearings. They are genuine NOS Leyland bearings, they are in Leyland original packaging before the adaptor cups are fitted.

_________________
DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Thanks Kev, that is good to know. At least I have a better feeling about them lasting a long time now.

Still in the process of reassembly. Just the column to reinstall, rack bolts to tighten and the inlet and exhaust manifold to bolt back up and the rear section of the exhaust to wiggle back into the LCBs. I've replaced the bushes in column too.

_________________
"In two years time your car will be like a lady's clothes, out of date, my car will still be in fashion when I am dead" - Sir Alec speaking to Pininfarina

Bit of an update: Finished the rebuild of the rack. Seemed like it would take more than 200mL of oil but stopped at 200 because that's what the manual and everyone says.

Rack back in the car and all the bolts done up along with a string line wheel alignment to get the wheels pointing straight again.

Feels tight but I'm sure it will loosen up with time. Even the column felt a bit tight before I even installed it so it is probably a combination of all the steering bits needing some bedding in. Definitely feels better and had no slop when I try to replicate the old problem.

Thanks for all your help. I'm planning on condensing all of this and putting it in my cars thread and I thought I'd do up a post about the remote grease nipple in case someone out there would like me to modify an adapter or two for them to make their own.

Thanks all, especially Kev for all the advice and swanky new damper yoke.

_________________
"In two years time your car will be like a lady's clothes, out of date, my car will still be in fashion when I am dead" - Sir Alec speaking to Pininfarina