This is one of the ****ty jobs on a 928, like removing the rear bumper cover while the fuel tank is there.... or the door hinge bolts without the air hammer

 

I may have just given up too soon. Sometimes I get frustrated, and it's best to just walk away before I break something! Done working on it for the night, but will give it a go again tomorrow evening, hopefully more refreshed...

Any tips still greatly appreciated!

 

Chris, yea I got spoiled working on my car on a rack at a friends shop. Boy is it nice to have that kind of room. Working under the car on your back again is a real pain.

How were you moving both the u-joint and the rack at the same time? Did you have the joint partially on the steering gear and then just work it on?

BTW, do your Newfs ever help you work on your 928. My boy likes to come out in the garage and hang out with "Dad". He usually just watches or takes a nap. Not much for giving advice or fetching tools though...

 

Yes, partial engage works.

If I remember right, you can orient it so that you are looking dead-through the bolt hole on the Ujoint.
The rack land area for the bolt is visible, so you line stuff up, then put it on and tap it. They way its set-up, the bolt is hard to get in, maybe impossible, if its off more than tooth or so. But its easy to get it just right. Your wheel may be off slightly, though, due to slight repositioning of the lower A-arms. In other words, an alignment afterwards is important, but you shouldn't be a tooth off.

We have three females. The rescue is a very powerful girl, about 145lbs, big. She loves the basement, monitoring the work, laying on the skirt outside the garage. The other two can't stand to be away from the action, always sitting above me drooling on me.

 

I'll give it a try again tomorrow night trying to line everything up better.

Our two rescue girls don't seem to be interested, but the male is "Daddy's boy" and loves to hang out. Our first male we had years ago loved to help me work on the cars too. We have a great photo of him crawled under the car "helping" me. You see my feet and his rear end under the car!

 

Rick, do you happen to be on newf net?

 

GREAT avatar shot of your Newfs in the snow! Don't get much of that around here...

 

My wife is sometimes on Newf-l. It's been a long time since I've been on, barely have time to come on rennlist as much as I'd like. We do belong to the Newfoundland Club of America and our local Mesquite Newf Club (AZ).

 

That picture was taken this afternoon. We had an unexpected 5 inches of snow here (by the evening). Have a bunch of Virginia Tech students stranded here with us, can't make it back home tonight.

Good luck with the car, I sometimes let them sit for a few days before I get a second wind. I think you will be able to find a way to install the Ujoint without resorting to dropping the rack, but its not hard to do unless the suspension is already back in place. I generally have more trouble with the two hydraulic lines then the splines.

 

I would suggest that you loosen the rack securing bolts then let the rack drop out a bit, this should give you the needed clearance to install the U joint fitting.
Trying to install the fitting after the rack is positioned will make things difficult if not impossible, and you may also damage the fittings splines. BTDT

 

That will definitely help. Forgot about that.

 

Rick:

I had EXACTLY the same problem with my rebuilt rack. If Stan's suggestion, which should be SOP, doesn't work, examine the shaft splines on the rack very carefully. Mine had been mooched on the ends - somebody may have dropped the rack or pounded on the end of the shaft with a hammer. Rather than send the rack back, I bought a set of jeweler (small triangular) files at Harbor Frieght and cleaned up the splines until it finally slipped on. It took quite a bit of filing, checking, refiling while examining the splines with magnifying lens glasses. It would not slip on unless they were perfect. Removing the rack and the u-joint from the car to do this is essential.

Also, you do know you have 50/50 chance of getting the rack and the steering wheel synch'd in terms of tooth position as the lower U-joint shaft has twice as many splines as the steering wheel (WHY on God's Green Earth is this so??), and you won't know for sure until you get the rack bolted in position with a centering bolt installed. You may have to loosen it, drop the rack down a bit and shift the u-joint over a tooth.

Fun and games,

 

Stan, that's exactly what I was wondering was if the u-joint needed to be fitted to the splines BEFORE the rack was bolted up. Sounds like that's the case. I'll give it a try.

Bill, I didn't think to check the splines carefully before hand on the rebuilt rack. Looked OK at a glance. I'll take everything apart again (the pressure lines were a pain to get started too) and try as you and Stan suggest - sliding the u-joint on the splined shaft with the rack "loose".

Question still is though, does the pinch/clamp bolt on the u-joint have to be lined up with the notch on the steering gear shaft? It looks like the bolt goes through regardless of position. This would obviously help with centering the rack and the steering wheel. If not, I've got something else off, more than likely the steering wheel when I'm done.

 

Yes. Mason is correct, the "flat" on the rack's stub-shaft must line up with the bolt (i.e. with the flat oriented towards the 'slot" in the u-joint) or the bolt won't go in-- and your wheel won't be centered with the rack centered.

IIRC, with the rack centered (i.e. dimple centered in the centering hole) the flat should be at 9-o'clock when you are facing forward looking at the shaft as it is oriented in the car.

If it is not even close then the rack was most likely mis-assembled by the rebuilder and you will need to re-index the pinion (or return the rack for another). Re-indexing the pinion is not hard-- just remove the plate on the bottom (to take the spring pressure off the rack), remove the three screws securing the pinion/control-valve assembly and then pull it out, move it a tooth or two and re-assemble everything. Let me know if you want some pic's of what is in there, I've got a disassembled rack here (an ongoing "science project").

Don't start shifting the u-joints or steering wheel, that's a slippery slope and not needed.

Ditto on checking the rack's splines-- I also had one that needed a bit of dressing with a jeweler's file, had a rough time somewhere. The u-joint body is aluminum and a bit of lube (grease or anti-seize) is good.

 

Bill, it sounds like we are getting our racks from the same folks...

I wonder if we are heading for the same problem as water pumps, with a diminishing supply of decent rebuildable cores? I just ran into a problem with the recently-replaced rack in the GT, suddenly developed a bunch of play that it didn't have before. I'll post something when I get it sorted out.