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Module 2 - Steering Rack

Module 2 Build:

<2nd September 2005>
Steering Rack:
With the front hubs in place its now time to fit the steering rack to the chassis and the steering arms. First thing to do is fit the track ends to the steering rack end rods. As you can see in the picture this basically a ball joint that screws onto the treaded ends of for the steering rack. They face upwards and screw onto the steering arms of the front hubs with a nyloc nut. There is a lock nut on the rack end that is used to adjust the tracking.

Connecting the steering rack to the chassis involves placing 2 rubber mounts over the rack and then fitting a mounting over the top and bolting this to mounting points on the chassis. I used a silicon lubricant on the rubber so that the metal mountings slid over without damaging the rubber. This was a very tight fit and involved spraying the lubricant on and then squashing the mountings down and quickly tightening the bolts. Not too much trouble though and i know have a nicely mounted rack ready to steer the wheels!




Next up was the top steering column. I found the column and placed it where the chassis mounting points were only to find it went under the chassis by the pedals and there was no hole in the alooy panel. So i quickly marked where it would go and started drilling holes around the parimeter. Once i had enough holes i used a file to join them all until the center fell out. Then it was just a case of filing the edges and making it nice and neat, removing any sharpness to the edges. As you can see from the picture i ended up with a pretty clean hole above the master cylinder.

Putting the upper column in place showed the hole to be the perfect size and shape with about 2mm gap around the whole column. So i hunted down some bolt of the sizes specified and got to work on tightening it down. There isn't much room for the wrench around the lower mounts so it was more of a spanner job down there. So now my upper column is in place and ready for both the lower column and the steering wheel. Both come later on though.

<17th January 2006>