Hi Gary,
The local autocross tech inspectors kept complaining about a bit of play in the
right-front suspension, and it was not the balljoints or A-arm bushingsb& so I
popped off the steering arm joints and the right rack end flopped down while
the left one had enough preload on the inboard spherical joint to keep itself
in the air. Tom Hall says this is an indication that the Belleville tension
washer in the inboard rack end has failed. I took the rack out, removed the
boots, and found that the rack had been b repairedb sometime in the past;
rather than relying on just the crimps on the spherical ends to keep things in
place, theybd welded the sheetmetal parts to the rack rod. The weld beads then
smashed repeatedly into the bronze bushing on the right side (basically every
time the steering was turned to left-lock) and cracked the internal rack
bushing. So things are probably repairable but with a lot of work.
I decided that what I wanted was a little bit quicker steering ratio, and a
modern rack assembly. The FR Cobra/MGB rack has both of those things, but the
mounts are located differently from the Tiger rack, so Ibll have to rework the
mounts on the crossmember, as well as setting up a new intermediate shaft
because the FR rack has a longer pinion shaft. I talked to FR about doing a
custom rack but they donbt do that for the Cobra/MGB assembly b only for the
Mustang II based rack.
Owain Lloyd says that you can get newly made Midget racks from South America.
This may be an easier route; I already had the FR rack on order so Ibm going
this way unless it turns out to require really strange U-joint angles. I did a
bit more searching and found that Quaife apparently makes custom racks but I
donbt know at what priceb& it would be nice for someone to actually make a
drop-in rack so that you wouldnbt have to be modifying stuff to get a proper
and modern rack.
Ibll try and take pictures as things go together.
Cheers,
Theo
From: Gary Winblad [mailto:garywinblad@comcast.net]
Sent: April 8, 2011 9:10 AM
To: Smit, Theo
Cc: tigers@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Flaming River rack
Hi Theo,
Tell us more about your Flaming River rack project.
Gary
----- Original Message -----
From: Theo Smit <Theo.Smit@dynastream.com>
To: Mark Rense (GE, Appl & Light) <mark.rense@ge.com>, tigers@autox.team.net
Sent: Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:25:08 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: [Tigers] List Down?
It's up... By way of news, my Flaming River rack arrived yesterday so I'll be
doing some fabrication in the next few weeks.
Cheers,
Theo
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