1987 3.2 Carrera Backdate project - Sladeys hotrod

[PeterK]

You’re too kind Darren

When you’re done & worked out the best approach Mark, an idiots’ guide would be welcomed

[sladey]

You’re too kind Darren

When you’re done & worked out the best approach Mark, an idiots’ guide would be welcomed

Will do Peter. I’m glad I’ve replace the steering rod ends - there was so much give in them this I’m sure it would have affected the toe-in and stopped me getting predictable results


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[Darren65]

......and I’d like to build my skills further. I think I’ve got the setup ready to go now but I want to set aside plenty of time to measure, adjust, repeat, repeat, repeat

No doubt you'll crack it mate and an amazing skill to have in the locker once you do!

[sladey]

Thanks Darren

[sladey]

All mouth and no trousers, that’s me. I did all that work on making the kit etc and then I couldn’t be arsed doing it. I felt it would be a whole weekend but I never felt like getting down to it.

Had a niggly problem with the car last autumn - the central locking wouldn’t lock the drivers door. I replaced the solenoid, did a lot of looking, and quickly reached the limit of my electrical technical ability.

Over the next couple of months I approached about 10 auto electricians and not one got back to me - I even threw in the possibility of a new alarm install as a sweetener but nothing

Eventually I put it to a guy I already know - Simon Kerr of absoluteVW at Shardlow. He sussed out all the problems and put it right. It wasn’t cheap but he really did a proper job. I’d got a fault with the central locking unit as well as a broken wire on the loom. He made up a new loom, fitted a new central locking unit and a few other things. There aren’t many “experts” I will still trust my car to but Simon is definitely one of them.

It was an annoying fault because it meant I couldn’t actually use the car as I could never lock it up. All good now.

More recently I’ve bought a close ratio steering rack from quaife and I’m currently in the process of fitting it (write up coming soon)

In other news I’ve pulled the trigger on ridiculously expensive tractive suspension. Again very excited about that and will do a full write up

[Gary71]

Can’t wait for the suspension story… just get it sorted before the Euro tour!

[sladey]

It’s all booked in for final setup 5 days before we go - what could possibly go wrong!


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[Gary71]

Plenty of time. I’ll have the spanners ready on ferry

[jtparr]

Hi Mark
Look forward to the write up on the suspension….and more so seeing it in the flesh….

[sladey]

Well I find myself with some time on my hands to write up the quick ratio steering rack install. it will become clear why….

I’ve thought about installing the qualified quick ratio rack a few times. Over the years I’ve gone through a number of steering wheels until I eventually built my own custom version from a 914 wheel which I had covered by JP of this Parish. I’ve always loved the wheel.

However the diameter is slightly larger than I was used to and whenever i drove the car after a period away from it, it always surprised me initially that i was moving my arms so much. The counterpoint to this is that the ‘feel’ in the corners was excellent. However, it set me thinking about a quick ratio rack.

This thought seemed to occur to me each time I went on a longer roads trip. I knew James on here (Easylife?) had one knocking about so I think I messaged him a couple of times whilst on CLM trips. However he couldn’t find it so I shelved the idea.

Fast forward to earlier this year and Keith Seume was saying what a great change it had been for his car so I decided to pull the trigger. I contacted Quaife who said they would make one if I paid half as a deposit. I did that and a few weeks later the rack arrived.

Great I thought, unbolt the old one and bolt in the new one. Happy days.

I’ve never taken out the steering rack before so I was another part of the car to learn about. I watched a YouTube video this morning from Soup motoring - restoring a classic lotus. He came out with the line “I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m doing it anyway” I liked that and it sort of sums up my attitude. How hard can it be?

It turns out removing it wasn’t such a problem. A slight gotcha was that I had to mangle the hinge for the smugglers box (my air con lines were in the way) so I’ll have to address that on reassembly


I also removed the suspension cross-member as I didn’t think it would come out without doing that. Pretty soon I ended up with this on my bench



Stripping it down was actually pretty straightforward.

Around this time the quick ratio rack arrived.

However, quite worryingly this piece of paper came with it


This was starting to not look like a bolt in job…..


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[sladey]

So now I’d bought the part and my steering was all in bits this seemed a sensible time to start research on how to install a quick ratio rack. Some might have suggested this should have been done before I started but where’s the fun in that?

So after looking into it some more and in particular a thread on pelican I thought this was something i could tackle myself. Although the instructions talk about machining to a specific diameter, in the thread it explains that you aren’t machining anything that needs particular tolerance - you are just creating space for the (now bigger) cogs

New one is on the left, original one is on the right



“I can do this” I thought.

I marked out the required new diameter of the hole and ordered a 25mm grinding stone for my die grinder



I didn’t have to take much out - but it does have to be taken down to a depth of 45mm which is quite a long way.

The grinding stone arrive and it looked a bit shite. The shaft was on the wonk. Sure enough, using it showed that it was only grinding on one side. It was removing material but very very slowly.



I did a bit of research then - best bits for removing aluminium. It came up with this design.


This morning Iw as finally able to have a go at it. OMFG! This is good! Chips were flying everywhere and it was going through the alu like a knife through butter. I kept trying the new pinion for size and whilst I’d got the diameter OK I needed to go deeper. It didn’t have a cutting edge on the end so this wasn’t easy

Part way through (can you see what I hadn’t seen?)


I tried again to get the bit further down and then this happened



Shite.

Hence I now have time to write all this up.

I’ve just ordered a second hand rack housing from Douglas Valley breakers. All my existing bearings were very good so hopefully out of the two I’ll be able to make up one good steering rack.

This time I’m going to strip it down and take it to an engineer to get them to machine it out to the required spec.

The Guy on Pelican was so encouraging and said that he took about an hour to remove the material. After 30 seconds with my new cutter I was thinking ‘what an amateur - I’ll have this done in 10 minutes’. Turns out I was underestimating my fuckuppery skills and I managed to destroy the part in less than 5.

Hey ho.


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[Gary71]

Always good to try though

How hard can it be? We’ve all been there when it turns out to be really quite hard!

Back on the road soon

[sladey]

Yep - I calmed myself down with some watch repairs which actually went ok and for once didn’t end in me ordering a replacement for the part I just broke.

There’s a pattern emerging here…

[KS]

All you needed to do at that point was use some JB Weld. Ask me how I know...

[sladey]

Yes I suppose you’re right - it’s not really contributing towards the structure and just needs to be sealed off.

I’ll see what the part from Douglas Valley looks like - I’d rather have it done properly but JB Weld looks like a plan B