So I've ran into a small issue with my steering rack. I recently swapped in a rebuilt engine by Pettit Racing and I missed the steering wheel to power steering rack alignment by one or two teeth. I was in a hurry to get the car out of the shop so I adjusted my tie rods to point the front wheels straight. The car drives straight with no tracking but it bothers me that it has slightly more steering angle on one side than the other. Is there a way to center the rack or will I have to measure everything?

 

Get the shaft to rack teeth lined up correctly?

 

The little steering elbow that connects the shaft to the rack is in correctly. It only goes on one way on the shaft side but the rack isn't centered. On previous cars I've worked on there was an alignment dot on the rack so you knew the rack was centered. Is there something like this?

 

Nope. When I replaced the lower u-joint, I originally got the teeth off center when I reconnected everything, and my steering wheel was off center. Didn't think it through enough and nearly wrecked my 8 when the DSC kicked in detecting a skid where one wasn't present (it uses the steering angle sensor after all). Took me a bit of disconnecting and reconnecting to get it lined up right.

Same concept here.

 

Damn...do you know if it's an absolute must to reset the the steering sensor? The shop manual keeps mentioning that any work done involving the steering rack needs to have a reset. Or will it be ok as long as I can get the steering rack centered like it was originally?

 

In theory, you could re-configure the sensor to pick up everything correctly with it off like this, but you have limited your turning radius in one direction mechanically by not doing it correctly. There may be additional subtle side effects, or long term side effects. With something as critical as steering, I'd personally prefer to just have it correct in the first place.

Just get everything lined up right and you won't need to worry about resetting the sensor.

 

1. disconnect steering u-joint between steering rack and steering shaft by unbolting it and sliding it off the steering rack splined shaft
2. center steering rack
3. center steering wheel
4. slide steering u-joint down onto steering rack splined shaft and retighten bolts to spec
5. will probably need an alignment to get the toe set properly with the steering wheel centered

 

That's what I'm planning on doing...was just wondering how do you center steering rack? If there isn't a centering mark or a method to center the rack I'm assuming I'll have to turn the steering wheel lock to lock and measure how far off center I am??

Thanks for the help!!

 

measure to tie rod thread starting point (inboard end) from the same fixed point on each side, might require an extra pair of hands