I am having some serious issues trying to sort a friends 356A Cabriolet in the steering department, hoping someone can help. The issues concern the steering box. The car has been converted from left, to right hand drive. The correct RHD pitman arm has been fitted and the ZF steering box has about 2.4 turns lock to lock, which I believe to be correct.
The problem I am having is that I cannot manage to get sufficient left hand lock. Right hand lock is fine. What happens is the tie rod ends contact the circular hole in the chassis where the tie rod and brake lines go through on the RHS. This restricts the box to 2.0 turns lock to lock. 1.2 turns right, 0.80 turns left.
See picture below:
Allow me to explain further.
I have fitted a N.O.S. ZF box at the owners request. The box is identical to that removed (Less the notchiness of the original)!
Firstly I orientated the pitman arm as per page S41 of the workshop manual, that is, with the index marks aligned on the pitman arm and the shaft. Next I checked the orientation of the input shaft, in that the scribe on the shaft aligns with the index mark on the body of the box, it does. See picture below:
At this stage, I also checked the box lash and confirmed that this position was the "High spot" of the box, and in fact it was. I then confirmed that in this position, the pitman arm was in the same position as the pitman arm on the old box (It was).
After fitting the box in position, it is impossible to align the wheels so that the centre position of the box is in fact straight ahead for the right wheel. It appears the tie rod on the right hand side is too long! There is not enough thread to shorten the rod. See thread position in the first pic)
And this pic shows the position of the right side wheel with the steering box in the central position, with the tie rod at its shortest length as per the first picture!
I see this problem could be eliminated by simply moving the pitman arm a spline or two on the output shaft towards the left hand wheel. But the index marks then would not line up on the pitman arm, not to mention some Ackerman displacement! However, something must be amiss, what have I missed? I am driving myself nuts with this issue! The parts book lists different tie rod ends for left and right hand drive cars, however I have been unable to source a photograph of these to check if there are any differences. Is it possible that the RHD tie rod end for the right side of the car is offset to clear the chassis hole? Any ideas?
Thanks and regards, Carl