Lost a tooth on the rack pinion so need to do a rack change, anyone got some helpful hints or want to give me a hand?

ohhh, mate, I was in melbourne yesterday and this morning, if you'd posted last night I would have been straight around. I thought about giving you a call but decided I'd had enough of the traffic

never done one but was told you can do the rack up with shims and if done right is good as new again ..worth the effort while its out..

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No longer Ms Westwoods mini outside her original kings road shop

no amount of shims will replace a tooth mate.....new rack time

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"Show me the Mini!"

wasnt meaning fixing the tooth.... but worth shimming the rack to take up slack if it has any

cheapo manualls dont cover shimming the rack

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No longer Ms Westwoods mini outside her original kings road shop

Yeah understand....but....you don't want to give the fella a bum steer do you ....dangerous situation when you lose a tooth

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"Show me the Mini!"

I feel like a DJ mixing tunes when I spin the wheel

I have removed the rack from my mini when I had too much backlash.
the 'shim' the steering rack will only reduce your backlash. You will find that they are not shims, but actual spring washers. you can get them out of most racks. I happened to have a LJ torrie rack sitting there and was able to re-shim or re-spring my rack.

You need to lower the rear of the front subframe from the body to pull the rack out.


how do you know its a broken tooth?

It's a crap job, no other way of describing it!!!! You have to lower down the whole front subframe & engine, then its easy to get the rack out, bitch to put it back in, when you have spent ages fighting to get the u bolts back in & tightened up, you can put everything back in, i've done about 8 of these jobs, none of them have been easy.

Enjoy

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.

My tips having done this two months ago:


Loosen rack clamp bolts inside car. (remove nuts)

Remove steering column, (remove wheel, cowl and indicator bits if desired)

Have the whole car on stands (with good wood planks between it and each 'corner' of the body work.

Put a jack (trolley is best, more stable) under a wood plank across the bottom of the subframe just near where the lower arms are. Be sensible and make sure you don't push up on anything but the subframe. In my case two 'spacing' pieces of wood screwed to the cross piece to clear the gearbox extension made it easier.

Remove front wheels

Undo exhaust / extractors

Remove tie rod ends from steering arm (scissor splitter if you want to use them again, or just cos they are easier)

Remove subframe bolts under floorpan

Undo the top subframe bolts

Loosen front subrame bolts

Make sure you won't damage carby, manifold, radiator, hoses, etc etc.

Check again cos you will probably forget something

VERY carefully lower the rear of the subframe down, about 2 inches. BE CAREFUL AND CHECK WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

remove u bolts,

slide out rack.

slide in new rack

The u bolts sometimes will need closing up in a vice to match the holes.

Put u bolts in (this will involve swearing, sore knuckles, and a punching bag nearby is best. Be prepared for doing this for several hours. Have a lead light and something comfrotable to sit, crouch, lay, pray and beg on.

Reverse procedure, again being very careful.

Don't forget to get a wheel alignment after, but to start with, measure the thread distance inside the old tie rod ends and duplicate this with the new ones, count threads etc. But this assumes same type of rack and same type of tie rod ends. You will still need the wheel alignment.

Enjoy!

Oh and If you stuff it up don't blame me. It's mostly common sense, so think about what you are doing and play safe at all times!

I tried to do a rack replacement by just lowering the subframe but it was just not enough to get the U bolts clear. Was spending hours of sheer frustration and finally decided to lift out the engine and then drop the rack right out. Then it was straight forward R&R but a hellova long way round for the sake of four nuts on U bolts.

Did get a chance to clean the rack and clean the engine though.