Steering rack puck...long term replacement options?

[donbecker1234]

I'm rebuilding my steering rack, and the puck that puts pressure on the back of the rack bar is pretty worn. I would say about 50% is worn away, car has approx 40-60k miles. Rack has the old style tierods so I suspect it's original.

My (mis)understanding is that the puck's function is to push the rack into the pinion gear to provide better engagement of the gear teeth, and without it the pinion and/or the rack would wear out at an accelerated rate and need to be replaced.

I've read some of the existing threads here on Pelican, some have found unused/non-worn pucks in other racks and at some point someone was making a Delrin cap to go on the puck.

Does anyone have real world feedback on long term use of the Delrin puck cover? Does anyone know if Delrin is the right/best material here, would something low friction like PTFE be any better?

Has anyone looked into any other options? Does anyone happen to know why a sacrificial / wear item would be in the rack? Was this a materials limitation for the time period, or does the puck induce some friction that is somehow helpful?

I've been thinking about a possible replacement for the puck using a bearing of some kind as a more permanent solution that wouldn't be a wear item. One other positive side effect would be the grease in the rack not turning black from the wear on the puck.

Also, does anyone know how difficult swapping the puck would be with the rack in the car?

It would be a pain to have to repull my rack (and possibly the suspension) to replace my original puck if/when it wears out.

One interesting datapoint was a post by someone in Brisbane having 300K miles on his car/rack with the puck in great shape:

Post

picture of puck

It makes me wonder what dimensions and rating his spring was and how that might relate to his puck receiving such little wear.