That pesky rack conversion...

[ProZac]

So its been done a few times now, and the process of physically fitting a rack into the car is a reasonably well worn path. My personal preference here would be to fit Starion frame rail and engine mounts to an s-chassis crossmember, then use the s-chassis rack, arms, knuckles hubs, brakes and struts, then up to starion top hats. This is mainly for legal reason over here though, as it'd be much easier to certify.

In New Zealand, you cannot legally weld any part of the steering column that rotates.

Therefore, the trickiest part I reckon, is connecting the Starion steering column to the rack.

Was kicking ideas about on another forum I frequent, and came up with the idea of making a part to replace the rubber pivot coupler that interfaces our steering shafts to the factory steering box. When you remove the original rubber isolating coupler (not actually that hard of a job) the end of the steering shaft is an eyelet.

Hows about this:

Solid piece of round stock.
Drill out one end to the same (marginally smaller?) diameter as the steering shaft.
Ensure round stock is of sufficient diameter to leave atleast 3mm wall thickness (same or more than original pivoting coupler thing wall thickness).
This slides up (marginal interference fit?) over the eyelet, almost butting up to the bearing carrier in the end of the column.
Pin goes through new piece, and the eyelet, connecting them in the same way as factory pivoting coupler thing.
As the new piece fits over the round part of the original steering shaft, right by the bearing carrier, it cannot pivot on the pin.
Other end of the new piece is machined down then splined to accept a generic steering universal.

Excuse terrible MSPaint skills.



The gasket on the firewall through which the column passes would need to be modified to support the column outer tube, as it's no longer supported at this end by the steering box.

Thoughts? Plenty of smart people on here that can weigh in :-).

[Lunacy]

Me likey :-) cant see why that wouldnt work and be legal. Il take one thanks :-)

[John196701]

Zac

what rack are you thinking of, the excel rack, you could fabricate a nice bracket to weld to the cross member, the thing i would first be looking at would be finding a coupling section that did not require welding and would fit neatly between where the rack is mounted and the bottom of the steering column, hit the wreckers and find what is available

if you want more photo's of what i have done and the measurements, let me know

John

[ProZac]

Cheers John, photos and measurements are always handy and appreciated!

I'd prefer to weld rack mounts to the starion crossmember, as I've already rebuilt my factory brakes, but for that to be legal on a road car over here, it has to be crack tested, which can get fairly expensive. By the bizzare writing of the rules however, I can weld the framerail/engine mounting ears from the Starion crossmember to another subframe, that already has rack mounts, and as long as the welding is of an acceptable quality, it'll be fine.

I'm thinking nissan s-chassis vehicles for donors, as that stuff is cheap, plentiful, and already well researched. I've got a couple of nissan racks and an S14 silvia subframe knocking around already too. By using complete nissan front suspension, you get access to easy and cheap brake upgrades also.

The nissans use a universal joint at the rack end, that has two female clamp splines (17.5mm, 36splines). If I make up the adaptor from the end of the steering column to match this, and use two of these universals (one on the end of the column, one at the rack), I just have to make a shaft to go in between them. Seems like almost all nissans from the mid 90's till the mid 2000's used these universal joints, so they're easy and cheap to get.