I wouldn’t sweat the rack orientation because it moves in both directions and it’s low speed. It’s not like transmission gears where there’s a drive/power side and a coast/deceleration side of the gear tooth. Trans gears have a clearly different wear pattern due to that different load application. The wear in the steering gear is basically symmetric

My line of thought as well, but with how often it's noted to keep the same orientation I had to wonder if I missed something.

It’s certainly good practice to keep things matched the way they came apart. But in this case where it’s low speed operation, you’re not dealing with extremely fast rotation where uneven wear would transmit noise, or a potentially looser fit would cause parts to hammer in each other and self destruct

The other thing to keep in mind is that the rack was likely operating in a rather dry condition. With it now refreshed and regreased, it’s going to be operating in conditions far better than it was before, even if the rack is flipped from its previous match. Plus the pinion and rack teeth will eventually establish a new wear pattern. As long as you don’t see any awful pitting on the teeth, they’ll mesh with each other just fine

Actually this was an opportunistic rebuild, and I was rather surprised to see that the grease and all wear surfaces were in pretty good shape. The needle bearing on the pinion, however, fell apart as soon as I pulled the pinion--the needles just tumbled out.

Anyway, thanks for the reassurance!

Any news on where to get a new puck?

Also after I've assembled. Cleaned and greased with new bearings. I can barely move the rack by hand. Is this normal? Feels tighter than I remember before I disassembled

Thanks
Richard

Richard, My rack was MUCH tighter, too after a rebuild. All i did was re-grease ( too much?) re-surface the puck. 99% sure I assembled it properly. Still... it was stiff ..my solution doesn't help you: put a spare rack, I had laying around, in instead, while the fully restored, re-greased rack is in my work shop still...mystery.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1707094633.jpg
I saw a post on this thread showing where to purchase the star washer to retain these bearings, but has anyone sourced the rubber rings? One of mine came loose under use and was torn.

Anyone that has had experience doing a few racks. Any idea what the result would be of a puck with too much OD clearance to the bore? Assuming the face was nice and flat, spring and shimmed ok, and everything else was working correctly in the unit.

Would you feel anything through the steering wheel? Maybe a slight *click-click* of the puck moving side to side within the bore and dragging differently on the rack while its moving vs while its static?