Steering rack bush

[JeremyD]

Has anyone replaced the felt bush in the steering rack with the rack in the car? If so, any tips? I have done it numerous times with the rack out, but I really don’t want to go through the process of removing it.

[dklawson]

I did it years ago but I did not use felt. I would not do it on the car again.

This is not a sequential list, it is what I remember making the process difficult.
You have to disconnect the rod end from the steering arms,
remove the rod end from the rack, remove the gaitor,
drill/grind out a staking that secures the inner rod end to the end of the rack.
remove the sheet metal screw securing the steel cup shaped bush in the rack,
then you have to use something like a slide hammer to extract the steel cup.

That's just to get the rack torn down enough to fish out any remnants of the old felt bush. Then you have to FIND a new felt bush or make/modify one to fit. I made one from Delrin. Putting everything back together was a pain in the rear.

After I did this I was advised that an alternative method to taking the rod ends off the rack was to make a replacement bushing from a piece of hydraulic hose sanded to the right outside diameter, split lengthwise, and slipped into the rack. Others have told me that the hydraulic hose method doesn't last. However, if I had it to do again and I didn't want to remove the rack, I would try the split piece of hydraulic hose method instead of what I did.

Obviously your results may be different.

[Spider]

I've only ever done it Rack Out, however, I recall 850man once saying he has done it many times by removing the passenger's end rod end, remove the self tapper, winding the steering all the way over the the driver's side, then screwing in a self tapper between the inner rack and the bush, then winding it all the way over to the passenger's side and in doing so, will drag the Bush and it's sleeve out with it.

[Nevsmini]

This is the tool for removing it in the car. It works the same way as spider described

5C8EAD34-0E77-4F65-96C2-05B08FF337C2.jpeg

[IslandBlue]

I had the local garage do this on the car with the help of the attached guide which seems to have been produced by (or owes a lot to) dklawson of this parish.

Mine is a Mk2 and I had tired of the knocking noise which took quite a while to track down to the bush located on the passenger side of the steering rack. The attached guide seems to refer to replacing the earlier felt bush with a fabricated delrin bush, I've no experience of the felt bushes but this guide provides much useful information.

[Andrew1967]

I’ve done it in situ, in similar way to how Spider describes.

Might be worth a search on this forum as I think it’s been discussed before.

[Spider]

This is the tool for removing it in the car. It works the same way as spider described

While I was always a bit indifferent to the idea of using a self tapper, this is brilliant

Thanks for sharing.

[JeremyD]

Thank you all.
If the metal sleeve is extracted in good condition then it seems that the rod end does not need to be removed because the felt can be rolled into the sleeve and inserted.

I saw this picture on another forum for a Heath Robinson way of extracting the sleeve

[dklawson]

I saw this picture on another forum for a Heath Robinson way of extracting the sleeve

Anything that doesn't involve removing the inner joint looks good to me!

[Gary Schulz]

Solved one noise, and now I have been tracking down another. This time I traced it to this darned bush. I have a huge amount of play on the passenger side tie rod. It makes noise as the steering wheel is turned from side to side. I have pulled it apart as shown in the picture below but I really really do not want to pull the rack on this thing! Somewhere inside it looks like there is already a plastic bush but it is not controlling the motion of the inner gear rack so the whole thing is able to move about. If I insert long wood screws as shown in this thread while the steering is turned fully to the left then as I turn the wheel to the right it should withdraw the bush? Am I understanding this correctly?

I am obviously looking for the path of least resistance to get this back into working order...

20200616_100947.jpg

[Gary Schulz]

It would appear that there is no bush left at all! I just tried the "3 screw" method and I have not had any success. The thought of removing the rack is very depressing...

I am starting to think I need a vacation from working on this Mini.

[JeremyD]

Well I have fitted a new bush without removing the rack or removing the tie rods. I did it by cutting the metal sleeve and carefully opening it up until it fitted over the rack. I did the same for the plastic bush which I fitted inside the sleeve. I compressed the sleeve again with a pair of waterpump pliers and carefully knocked it into the rack until it was seated. I then drilled through the self tapping screw hole so it made a dent/hole in the metal sleeve so the screw holds it in place. It's certainly fixed the knocking. It remains to be seen how long it lasts, but quite frankly it's easy enough to do the job again.