Steering Rack Issue

JTBernhardt

JTBernhardt

True Classic
A while back in my '86 X1/9 I hit a HUGE pot hole at 70mph going through Berkeley towards San Francisco. The front end of the car lifted off the ground at the time of the impact and it almost made me lose control of the car. I inspected the front end of any obvious signs of damage and couldn't find any at the time. The front end squeaked over small bumps and when turning hard to the left or right. The squeaking would stop if I cranked the steering wheel to the left and right extremes for a few minutes.

That has since stopped, but the cars handling has been getting worse. Recently the car has been under-steering and losing grip with the front wheels (not something I'm used to in a car that normally over steers and doesn't lose grip). The car's handling is vague. The inner corners of the front tires have worn down much quicker than the outer edge. It looks like the toe is too far out (I haven't measured how much yet, but it is visibly noticeable). The camber seems to have changed a bit as well, there's slightly more negative camber. The front outer tie rods are almost making contact with the top of the tunnel, and is preventing the shocks from compressing. It looks like it has been making contact with the wiring loom on the passenger side (which might explain why I sometimes lose power if I hit a bump?). The rubber boots are making contact with the firewall (the possible cause of the squeaking?). The passenger side rubber boot is covered in black grease. It does not look like the mounts for the rack have been broken, but it does look and feel like the rack may be bent. There isn't any play or notable slop in the steering and nothing feels loose. The suspension links don't look to be bent in any way.

The car has been lowered using Koni red shocks and FAZA lowering springs. A full alignment was done following the suspension work, and before the pot hole the car tracked straight and handled extremely well.

It's looking like the rack will need replacement. Since I have a late car it uses a different rack than the early cars. Is it possible to use the rack from an earlier car? Midwest offers a rebuilt unit for the earlier cars.

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The symptoms you mention, especially the tires worn on the inside, are consistent with a change in toe from the impact. Usually this will bend one side or the other, and it's immediately apparent from the steering wheel being skewed while travelling in a straight line, and from it wanting to pull to one side or the other. You didn't mention either of those, that I saw. Any of that going on?

If not, it might be that both sides were bent in roughly equal proportions. I wonder if your steering tie rods are bent under the bellows. You might want to peel those back from the rack side and have a look.

If you switch to an early rack, I think you have to change it as a complete set (rack, tie rods, tie rod ends). The tie rod end length, size and thread pattern are different between early and late.

Pete
 
The steering wheel is skewed slightly to the right in a straight line. In a straight line it tracks straight, but tends to wander side to side (this is very mild, and tends to favor going right, but it does wander in both directions). My guess is that the tie rods are bent under the bellows as you suggest. Rather than dissect the rack in the car I might do this after pulling it out. The fun part is going to be replacing the rack without a floor jack in my garage in SF. I don't know if I feel comfortable driving it back up to Foresthill (140miles NE of SF). I think string alignment method should be sufficient to get the car tracking straight enough to make it to a proper alignment shop.

If switching to an early rack means just replacing the tie rods and associated bits I might go that direction.
 
The side to side wandering would be from the toe out condition.

If you have the standard jack, you can lift it up one side at a time, take the front tire off on that side, and then lower the car onto a jackstand on that side, repeat for other side.

Steering rack replacement is not terribly difficult, 4 nuts under the carpet, 2 on the passenger side and 2 on the drivers side. Then the steering U-joint. I don't know if it's the same arrangement as the Scorpion, but on the Scorp you must actually fully remove the bolt on the U-joint. It runs in a groove on the rack's input, so it has to slide out of the groove to separate the rack and U-joint. Took me a few minutes to figure that one out.

Then it's just a matter of breaking the tie rod ends free from the knuckles, old one slides out, new one slides in. String align, then take to an alignment shop if you are not 100% confident in your alignment job.

Pete
 
I don't really know, would it easier to replace the tie rod ends while leaving the rack in place? For that matter, maybe an alignment is all it really needs? Just thinking of options that will be more manageable given your situation. Not sure I'd really want to pull the entire rack first thing, if I was without a jack, etc.
 
Dr.Jeff said:
I don't really know, would it easier to replace the tie rod ends while leaving the rack in place? For that matter, maybe an alignment is all it really needs? Just thinking of options that will be more manageable given your situation. Not sure I'd really want to pull the entire rack first thing, if I was without a jack, etc.
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That's not an easy thing to do, the rack end is staked into place and you have to unstake them. Then you have to spin them off, which requires a large adjustable wrench. You can't really do all that in the tunnel. It's literally 5 bolts and the 2 tie rod ends that have to be removed to pull the rack. Much simpler to just pull it, even if only to replace the tie rods.

Pete
 
Got it. Like I said, I did not know, thanks.
That makes me think even more that it might be worth an alignment first, before pulling anything. At least a string job to get the car back to where ever there are better tools, etc to do the rack removal.
 
Before you start replacing stuff you need to know what's bent or damaged. I have seldom seen a steering rack get damaged due to potholes. Most likely you have a bent strut and/or a bent radius arm mount and/or lower control arm. I would bet that most of the problem is a bent strut. Also likely you bent a rim so check the inside edge of the wheel for runout
 
These are the kind of reasons I would not be in a rush to pull the rack right away, especially when you don't have the right equipment on hand.
 
I don't know if I'm ready to pull the entire rack just yet. I think trying to find the issue before replacing the old parts is always a good idea.

From my initial inspection last night it didn't look like the lower control arm or the radius arm were bent. I haven't inspected the struts yet, but I would be surprised (and upset) if one was bent. From what I understand a bent strut would have caused a much more noticeable issue with the drivability of the car. It wasn't particularly easy to find these Koni reds, and finding affordable replacements would probably be even more difficult. The rims aren't bent as I've had them off since to rotate the tires front to back and saw no damage. I guess that's one benefit to having 13 inch tires; there's quite a bit of rubber to absorb impacts.

Doing a string method alignment before removing the rack may not be a bad idea, but my guess is that there are larger issues at hand than toe being too far out. The fact that the outer tie rods are making contact with the rack tunnel and that the rubber boots on the rack are touching the firewall are a good indication that something is wrong with the rack rather than the front suspension.

After a more thorough inspection of the front suspension components this evening I should have enough information to decide whether or not to proceed with removing the rack.

As far as tools go the only thing I'm really lacking is a floor jack. I think I could manage just fine with the original jack. Worst case I can stop by the local autoparts store and pick up a floor jack. I have all the other tools needed to work on Fiats in the trunk.
 
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JTBernhardt said:
The fact that the outer tie rods are making contact with the rack tunnel and that the rubber boots on the rack are touching the firewall
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I missed that part. But I think you are on the right track to do a very thorough inspection and take some measurements to see what's going on first. If a jack is the only thing you are missing, you could even get a really cheap one at Walmart for this situation.

Reminds me of a prior experience. I was standed out of town with a break-down. No AAA towing available, no service facilities anywhere nearby, etc. Had a few hand tools but no jack. So I hitched a ride to the nearest parts store and bought the part I needed (like $10) and a cheap jack (about $25). While using it to make the roadside repair, the jack actually broke. Not in a way that caused any damage or safety risk, but certainly not something I'd ever use again. So on my way out I stopped back at the store where I bought it a few hours earlier and showed it to them. They kindly gave me my money back. I was able to get the job done for only the cost of the part, and much faster than any repair shop or even a tow would have taken.

Not to focus back on the rack (at least until you find out more), but isn't there a plastic mount or bushing that is prone to breaking either in or on these racks? If that broke would it cause similar issues? Pete, Steve, anyone that knows about these racks? Also can you check to see if the whole rack is loose in its mounts? Is there any play or rattles or odd feeling when turning the wheel?
 
I've seen more intense repairs done camp-side at the annual Mirafiori camp out in Oregon. I'm no stranger to on-the-road repairs.

I did check to see if the rack was loose. There is no obvious play in the rack itself and it doesn't make noise when I turn the steering wheel to the extreme in either direction. The only time I had noise coming from the rack was the few weeks directly after the impact. It was the rubber boot squeaking on the firewall when turning.
 
JTBernhardt said:
Hey, aside from accidentally locking the keys in the trunk of my Spider, I didn't have any major repair projects at Oregon last year...
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Oh my, nothing worse than that feeling. Especially if you realize where the keys are at the precise moment the trunk latches.
 
JimD said:
Oh my, nothing worse than that feeling. Especially if you realize where the keys are at the precise moment the trunk latches.
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Just about the only thing that could make it worse is locking them in the trunk right before the group picture at the Mirafiori Oregon event. I went in my tool box to get a razor to remove some tree sap and put the razor blade in my pocket and the keys in the tool box. The car made it into the picture and I ended up calling a locksmith who was nice enough to make me a spare trunk key that lives hidden in the car just in case.

I had made it years without locking my keys in the trunk, figures I'd do it for the first time among all the Fiatsi on the West coast...
 
Dr.Jeff said:
Not to focus back on the rack (at least until you find out more), but isn't there a plastic mount or bushing that is prone to breaking either in or on these racks? If that broke would it cause similar issues? Pete, Steve, anyone that knows about these racks? Also can you check to see if the whole rack is loose in its mounts? Is there any play or rattles or odd feeling when turning the wheel?
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Yes, there is a plastic bushing that centers the rack in the rack housing on the passenger side (right hand side in the US). Turn the wheel far to the left, extending the rack out the right side, then grab the inner tie rod end through the boot, and try to move it up-down/fore-aft. If the bushing is bad, you'll notice a lot of movement. This translates to a change of toe on the one side of the car as you are driving down the road. Even worse on a 128 as the steering is reacting to torque steer.

I would also guess that with a hit that big the strut bump stops would bottom out so it would be worth looking to see if they are still ok and centered, or if the rubber was dislodged. This wouldn't cause understeer but maybe some squeaks. My '86 X is not lowered with FAZA springs, just cut (and not retapered, shame on me) springs that have a tendency to pop out of the spring perch when the car has been jacked up. Might be worth looking at spring-to-perch alignment.

Also, if you haven't done a Plaia Pivot conversion, the plastic bushing that centers the top of the spring perch could have broken, allowing the spring/perch to float around. Again, not something that would cause toe or camber change, but a source of squeaks and clunks.
 
I just inspected the front end again in more detail. After doing the test Courtney suggested I found a little play, but not very much. It does look like the inner tie rod on the driver's side is bent and the driver's side strut is blown, but not bent. The lower control arms and radius arms appear to be okay, but could use new bushings. The passenger side shock is okay, but the rack is leaking on that side. Neither wheel appears to be damaged in any way.

I guess now this is going to turn into a front end rebuild thread. I don't think finding another set of Koni reds is going to be easy or cost effective when there's a Koni coil over kit offered by Midwest Bayless. This would mean replacing all four strut assemblies. The steering rack also needs to be replaced, and my plan is to go with the rebuilt unit Midwest offers. Any suggestions on what to do with the lower control arms and radius arms?
 
The "blown" Koni should be rebuildable. Not exactly cheap but much less expensive than a replacement (especially a coil-over one). Might look at having both fronts rebuilt, perhaps a little tuning in the process?

If I understand correctly, the control/radius arms just need new bushings. You can do that. Like you said, pretty much a complete front end redo.
 
Koni can rebuild most any of their products, the question is whether it warrants the cost. I had Adjustable Konis on my old wagon - lasted maybe 25k miles before the rears started weeping. Even though they were only 2 years old at the time, that model they told me, was not designed to be rebuilt, so it would be around 500 per unit to convert and rebuild, no warranty. Since that cost was about what I paid for each them brand new, and considering the poor life span, I chose not to use Koni again.
 
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