Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi I need some help/pictures of a steering rack installed in a LHD chassis. My car has the solid alloy blocks that mount the rack to the chassis. I think the rack my need to move a little to line up correctly with the steering shaft. The OEM rack has metal D shape the butt against the OEM but these are alloy and i'm not sure how to the rack should line up and how close the metal D should be in relation to the mount.

The picture may help you understand.

Thanks

James

I don't know if this helps, I have completed a dry build on the car and the rack is lined up and fits inside the dash yoke mount with the body in place. These are the best pictures I have of the earlier dry build chassis/steering mount, the front shocks had not been adjusted and are now 1.5" lower ride height.

holywood3645 wrote:The OEM rack has metal D shape the butt against the OEM but these are alloy and i'm not sure how to the rack should line up and how close the metal D should be in relation to the mount.

Hi James,
I think you've answered your own question.....the original mounts position the rack by abutting the D shaped bracket at one end and the pinion body at the other so with your narrower alloy mounts the resulting gaps - which you show in your pics - should be the same both sides. If that's what you have and the pinion does not line up with the steering column then something else must be wrong.

I don't know but maybe place the old rack mounts where they were supposed to go and line it up that way. I have the same alloy mounts and here are a couple of pictures of the rack mounts with the original mounts placed fore and aft of the rack. This chassis is being set up as RHD as that is what I have for racks at the moment but there isn't much difference between them other than you use the other set of mounting holes. The alloy mounts that I have are not symmetrical and they would not fit with both mounts set with the widest part outboard so I have them loosely set with one in and one out, I do not know if this is correct or not yet as I am not far enough along to say.

Gary

James, if you don't have the oem mounts for testing, get some Triumph (Spitfire, I think) mounts off ebay and mount the rack. The oem mounts (and Triumph ones) both butt up against the 'D' piece on the rack. This should help you center the rack.

Greg Z

Thanks for the replys so far. This picture is with 'only' both the steering shafts installed, (no outer column, that has the bushings). The lower main shaft in the steering rack spline going through the bulkhead. and the second shaft slipped over the main. The only 2 places it touches are the sline and the bulkhead rubber. You can see the shaft is offset and just touching the left side of the dash. I orders a set of spitfire rubber bushes, and will remount rack with those bushes, and see if it helps.

Thanks again for the input
James