A few weeks ago I went through my pile of steering racks to get some reconditioned by the Doc. I have 6 in total and 3 were the repairable Cam Gears ones with the patent number on them. The other 3 I have are a Minispares UK quick rack (fitted to the Moke), an unidentified brand new (probably Mini Sport UK) quick rack, a 1963/63 vintage Cam Gears one from my 850 that pre-dates the repairable ones and one from a Rover Mayfair of 1994 with TRW RH21112 written on it.

The first thing I did was pull back the boot on the new quick rack. It has a sticker on it saying ESK022 so I expect that's the part number. Now there was zero lubrication on the rack gears and just a small blob of grease on the inner rod ends, but not on the wearing bits. It is now full of gear oil and grease. No wonder they have a reputation for not lasting long.

The insides of the Mayfair rack looked excellent. It has seen about 70,000km in Japan but is fine. Rack boots are plastic and shagged though.

I didn't take the boot off the 850 rack as it is covered in road grime and I CBF cleaning it. Felt fine though.

Then I measured the total movement of the racks and here's what I found:

1964 Cam Gears from 850 - 2.4 turns lock to lock - total 89mm movement = 37.1mm per turn.
ESK022 - 2.25 turns lock to lock - total 103mm movement = 45.8mm per turn
TRW RH21112 from 94 Mayfair - 2.6 turns lock to lock - total 97mm movement = 37.3mm per turn
Minispares UK Quick rack (2003) - 2.3 turns lock to lock - total 107mm movement = 46.5mm per turn
Cam Gears Aus (common Aus rack) 2.3 turns lock to lock - total 88mm movement = 38.2mm per turn

I'll have to wait for the Aus racks to put their details up. EDIT: now in the results above.

The total movement was interesting. In a big wheel moke the tyres rub the inner guards and apparently late racks fixed this by having less total movement. Since I have the 107mm movement rack fitted, I always get scuffed guards.

With the different total movement, the ratio difference is more pronounced. Instead of the quick racks being about 18% faster, they are actually 25% faster and therefore much heavier steering too.

FWIW I'm going back to standard on the Moke, sick of the indicators not cancelling from not turning the wheel far enough!

I hope this is of some use.

M

Disappointing read.......Saw the topic and was expecting to find a way of analysing Double D's

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1970 Cooper S ex-Bathurst & ATCC
1964 Austin Cooper S ex-Group C race car
1967 Morris Cooper S ex-Group B
1962 Mini Speed sports sedan
1968-71 ex-Peter Manton Shell car

I went on a Bendon "how to" course once (i.e how to measure, assess the fit etc). Best half day of my life

Australian Cam Gears AYA6001 racks have 2.3 turns lock to lock, same as the early 850 with its UK rack.
However, the turning circle is greater than all the later racks (quickrack included) as there are less teeth on the rack than the Mk2 UK onwards ones.
So you may not need to limit the rack stroke to stop the wheels rubbing.
I have the rack here out of Mini Mad's `68 bigwheel Moke, it is just a standard Oz Mini rack....

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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.

Check your steering arms that they are the MKI type and that they are not bent. Some of the very late Mokes (about Nov 80 on) came with the wrong steering arms.

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Thanks, will do. My current moke is a bastard child with bits from all over. My first one was dead stock and it's tyres rubber the guards too. I was expecting little rings in the Aussie racks to stop it travelling too far as I thought that 2 out of 3 were from Mokes.

M

The very early (~68 )Big Wheel Mokes that had UK racks, these were fitted with lock stops on the rack. None of the Ozzy Racks had these. But having said all that, nearly every Big Wheel Moke I've seen, the tyre do rub, if they are about 75 series or bigger, particularly on the Sept 79 on models that had the bumper mounts on the outsides of the front subframe.

They are all bastards, just fun bastards!

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With JC coming over to collect an Aussie rack I thought I would finish off the table at the top. The result is that the common Australian Cam Gears Patent racks are almost the same as the earlier ones in the 850.

I think my new car has one of those UK quick racks in it.

I'm not going to do it but it would be interesting to work out how much the extra throw of the Rover or UK racks reduces the turning circle of the mini.

M

The early racks look similar to the Cam Gears AYA6001, but the rack inside is smaller diameter, the pinion has 6 finer pitch teeth not 5, and none of the later bits fit it, including the tie rods.
The AYA6001 rack is actually a short version of a Morris 1100 rack, that's why it is bigger diameter bits inside..

re late Mokes, Mini King gets Morris 1100 tierods fitted to these Cam Gears racks for them, so you get another 12mm? thread engagement into the tierod ends.

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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.

My rack measures to DD

Doogie

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I won Hay once, here's the pic to prove it..


Hay, it's not about the car, it's not about the venue, it's about the people that come here. Peter Dwyer, Mayor of Hay NSW.