docmirror

I put on a new steering rack, and my steering wheel was not centered anymore. I used the following procedure to set it up right. WARNING - you will be working with explosives! take precautions as described.

1. Get the wheels pointed straight, use a stick on the outside of the left tire touching front and back of the side, sight down to the outer edge of the rear tire.

2. Disconnect the battery terminals. Wait 30 minutes before proceding.

3. Using a Torx T-30 1/4 drive, remove the airbag attachment bolts on the back side of the steering hub. They are captive, so will loosen, but not fall out.

4. Touch the metal frame of the car, to ground yourself, then pull the airbag away from the hub a few inches to expose the connector. Keep the airbag facing to your SIDE so the reciever piece, and the airbag piece neither face toward you.

5. Grasp the sides of the small brown connector and wiggle it off the rear of the explosive charge.

6. While keeping the airbag oriented on an angle away from you, set it down on the ground away from the car.

7. Use a socket to remove the center nut and washer.

8.Grasp the wheel and pull it toward you. If it is stuck use a punch and mallet to tap the shaft gently.

9. Guide the airbag connector through the angled slot in the hub. Set the wheel aside.

10. There is a black plastic bezel held on by two phillips, remove them and remove the black bezel.

11. You will now see the inner hub of the airbag wire slot, the horn copper grounding ring, and the turn signal cancelling module. It is held on by two offset screws, lower left and upper right. Loosen these two captive screws.

12. The module will now move off the shaft.

13. Pull it toward you so the white inner ring is off the spline shaft.

14. Rotate the white plastic inner hub to so the connector and wires for the airbag are at about the 1 o'clock position.

15. Put the module back on the shaft spline, with the white inner hub aligned so the wires will feed through the wheel slot, about 1 o'clock position,

16. tighten the module screws. Install the black bezel and screws.

17. Guide the airbag connector through the steering wheel hub slot.

18. Line up the wheel splines with the shaft. Attach the wheel with the nut and washer.

19. Carefully reinstall the airbag connector on the back of the airbag, snap it in snug.

20. install the airbag on the wheel hub, and tighten the T-30 screws on the rear recess of the hub.

21. Attach the battery terminal, and turn on the key.

22. The airbag symbol should light, then go out after a few seconds.

23. Have a beer.

Pic shows the connector with wires coming out at about 1 o'clock, and the two captive screws that hold it to the backing plate. the splines can be seen on the inside of the module. they line up with the splines on the shaft.

Jim bailey - 928 International

Nice write up Porsche wants you to always keep the soft side up on airbags just in case..

AO

Cool! And here I thought I was going to have to play with my tie-rods.

S4-on-your-back-door

rack has small capn back side were the nuckle goes if you remove it and turn tire with hand you should see a dot . center the dot and that should be center of rack. then replace steering nuckel and your steering wheel should be straight. then you should adjust tierods accordly.

docmirror

That is not always the case. my car steering rack was centered with the dimple in the rack locked with a small tapered screw. the location of the recess on the rack spline was way off registration with the steering wheel. More than could be adjusted with tie rod ends. I guess it's possible to disassemble the rack shaft and orient it, or disassemble the knuckle and register it that way. I setup the knuckle pinch bolt the correct way, and did the steering wheel as described.

Yes, keep the airbag facing soft side up when removed.

worf928

Nice write-up doc. And timely too. As I'm just about to replace the rack on my '91