Steering rack bushes

[DomP182]

I've done these today, wow what a sod without ratchet spanners. Feels better though. My question is how tight should I have done the 13mm clamp bolts up, I've thread locked them and done them up to what I felt was pretty tight

 

[DomP182]

Interestingly the drivers side bush that I removed is made of a softer rubber

 

[DomP182]

Replies guys? How tight should the 13mm and 16mm clamp bolts be?

 

[JamesBryan]

50Nm iirc

 

[Paul.M]

Can I ask what symptoms you had to make you change them?

I have recently changed my inner tie rods (?) hoping to solve some vague steering issues I have but it hasn't solved it totally so I think these will be my next option.

 

[ben_r1]

I had to change mine because everytime I went down a pot hole it's knock my tracking out. What are the uprated powerflex ones like?

 

[DomP182]

Ah replies, thanks I was feeling neglected.

Well I was feeling that there was a vagueness /sloppiness in my steering. I've not really given it a good road test yet but initially it feels tighter. The powerful ones seem to be off a harder material and as I said my drivers side was of a very soft sfuff compared to the passenger.

I can highly recommend getting your car very high up, I'm not very big so managed it just over a foot up easily but access to the top clamp bolts is a b#tch.

50nm, that's possibly where I did them to if not more.

 

[Paul.M]

Cheers chaps it sounds like it may be worth looking into for me then

 

[DomP182]

Yep for £20 and an hour or so lay under your car it's worth it

 

[onefourkrpm]

Do you need to do the tracking after changing the bushes?

 

[adamlstr]

Do you need to do the tracking after changing the bushes?

I would/did.

 

[DomP182]

I put camber bolts on at the same time which massively altered my toe, by I suppose there is the potential for movement

 

[Chip-mk1]

Do you need to do the tracking after changing the bushes?

Not really if the tracking is correct before hand.

The bushes only allow the whole rack to move side to side, they dont change the tracking which is the distance between the joints in the two rod ends.

But you might find that after replacing, your wheel is off centre if the rack is now located differently to when it was tracked, just a matter of luck that side of it really, but you certainly wont be harming your car to drive it around for a while till you get the tracking done.

 

[Ianboom]

I had my tracking done recently and found sometimes the wheel would be fine in a straight line and other times it was a couple of degrees anti clock wise.

I looked at the rack mounts and there is a polished/clean bit of the rack about 1mm either side of the mounting rubber, so I got the wife to waggle the wheel whilst I was under the car and I found it moved a little either way.

So, are my rubbers worn? I wouldn't have expected to see any play??

 

[dml6881]

Any pictures of the work you've done?. It's on my list of things to do but I'm not mechanically minded and would love to have a bash but I wouldn't know where to start.