Steering Rack Hell
 

Have taken it out twice now! WTH am I doing wrong?

Remove de-grease, reassemble. Center the pinon on the rack. 2.25 turns each way to get to the center.

Put it in the car and this is where it goes wrong...

1.5 steering wheel turns to the left opposite lock, great.

1 steering wheel turn to the right opposite lock, not great.

Basically I'm missing range to the right.

WTH am I doing wrong? This is doing my head in!

Are the two tie rods the same length?

Put a mark on input shaft, turn all the way to the left mark the left on the input shaft housing. Turn all the way to right mark that as well on input shaft housing. Now turn back until input shaft mark lines up between right and left housing marks.

I just went through this process after rebuilding my rack and pinion. Here's the sequence I used:

• Center the rack (like Dpmulvan describes). I checked the centering by marking the top of the centered shaft and rotating to full lock on each side - the end points for the mark should be symmetrical, e.g. at 5:00 and 7:00. I did this with both tie rods disconnected so the rack could travel freely in both directions to full lock. On my '83, it is almost 3 turns lock to lock.

• Without disturbing the rack, remove/reinstall the steering wheel to center it (it probably helps to have previously removed the wheel and lightly fitted it so you don't disturb the rack position). This is so everything is centered when driving straight ahead.

• Secure the steering wheel so it doesn't move from the straight-ahead position, then connect the tie rods and adjust them to the desired toe. You can rough it in with toe plates (measuring the difference between the side-to-side distance at the front of the tires and the rear of the tires). I followed up with a Smart Strings type setup so I could measure toe separately on each tire to keep everything centered.

Good luck

Why won't it just bolt back in like it came out ?
Possible that the poster moved the steering wheel in the interim ?
Maybe the rack was not centered and marked when removed ?

Hard to say, if he took it apart and didn’t put it back together properly that could also be an issue.

Sounds like something is off center. Get under the car and observe the rack and tie rod positions at full left and full right positions. If something is interfering, it will hopefully be visually obvious. It'll also tell you if you're just off center in clocking the steering wheel.