Steering rack install

[secondchance]

About a year and a half ago started to notice a bit of dead spot going straight. Also started to notice a sensation of front tires skipping under heavy acceleration. These symptoms were followed by outer edges of front tires wearing rapidly. Last summer I had my car on Rich's lift. With front end raised, moving the front tire/wheel left and right, I could hear light clanking noise coming from tie or dinner ends. I could just replace the tie rods but since I have racked up 158,000 miles, figured might as well replace the entire rack.

Of course, there are no NOS steering rack available. All major Corvette parts stores, Mid America, Corvette Central, Zip, Ecklers, and a few vendors on Ebay carry rebuilt units. Typical price ranged from $219 to around $400.
My preference would have been to have mine rebuilt by reputable rebuilder such as Turn One, but not an option since I didn't want to tie up Rich's lift for weeks.

For what it's worth, figured reputable Corvette Vendor (as opposed to unknown Ebay vendor) may have better quality control - I hope!

Luck would have it, Ecklers's had $50 off sale which reduced the price to $169 (or so) plus shipping (I think $49) and $300 core charge. Also, picked up some GM power steering fluid.

Old rack and new. New rack with tie rods eyeballed to the same length left and right with shaft connection clocked the same.


Rack ready for removal with roll bar and power steering cooler unbolted and out of way.




New rack in place and cooler re-mounted.


Phil, Jim, Gibby and Al joined me and Rich and pitched in to help. Phil's "gentle" persuasion was necessary to remove the old unit.

After 8 hours of frustration, a lot of help from Rich and a pair of very greasy hands, no more sloppy ride and crystal clear power steering fluid!