steering rack

[ek61]

is there any steering rack that will suit a HR front end
that is the right length with out getting it made shorter?
any help would be great
cheers dave

[Blacky]

You might be able to use a Camira rack ?

[ek61]

ill have to hit the wreckers with a tape measure i reccon

cheers dave

[Philip]

My engineer runs a daewoo cielo rack rear mounted....without shortening

[ek61]

cheers philip

will check them out

[Mick]

we've used an LC/LJ rack we had to make up extensions between rack ends and tie rod end i liked it not pretty good for bumpsteer and great steering lock, also used LH/LX/UC rack but with high soft springs it had fairly bad bump steer but lowered with stiff springs it was brilliant

[wot179]

Ive recently seen an MR2 power rack fitted to an LH Torana front end and it appears a neat fit.

It would make an interesting comparison to a HR front end,as they are pretty similar.

[cruisin_doug]

I have been told that VB Commodore into HR front is the go. But I haven't done it

[ek61]

the trouble im having is that i want it rear mounted and want to keep it column auto
but leaving the linkages in place wont allow me to shorten the column enough to get a better angle from the column
to the rack without the steering knuckle binding

cheers dave

[nosferatu]

There appears to be quite a few FE/FC/FB/EK owners who want this combination - rear mounted rack and column auto. This is a challenge because as noted the correct position for first steering uni makes it difficult but not impossible.

I built this set up for our FE van which runs v6 Chev T700 and rear mounted Commodore rack. Its fantastic to have 4 speed auto on the column as the car looks so standard and it is so easy to drive and to us it looks period correct. I have incorporated all the gate mechanism so is as safe as our Monaro to drive including neutral switch and reversing lights. I am now building a similar set up for Kathi's car which has a 350 with T700. The van has been done for about 2.5 years and has done about 30,000k without any issue. Some of you may have seen it at the FB/EK nationals at Mt Gambier a few months ago as we were parked on the elevated section of the oval. Even Fatboy saw it a couple of years ago and jumped in to try the gear selection.

There is no kit for this conversion but I started with an ididit cable conversion and then customised that. The biggest change is that the cable operation mechanism from the column must be on the inside of the firewall so it doesn't get in the way of the steering uni. in Kathi's car the cable flips up under the dash and goes through the firewall and down the left side of the T700 bellhousing. There is quite a bit of filing, cutting and welding to get it right. I think each conversion has taken me about 15 to 20 hours (there is a lot of thinking included). Including an ididit kit I started with it cost about $100 for me to do.

If you want a look there are a couple of pictures on Kathi's thread located at
http://fefcholden.org.au/forum/index.ph ... 0.220.html

The one on that page is a picture of the column for the Van if you progress toward the end of the thread I have a close up of the bottom of the column on Kathi's car and also a picture of the column set up in the vice but operating the T700 alongside.

I hope this helps a bit. It can be done.

John

[ek61]

yeh thats gunna be the problem trying to keep it short enough to get a good angle

[Philip]

i'm running the 28" ididit collapsable and its a perfect fit, just pokes through the firewall, ive seen it set up with a rear mounted rack with two borgeson double unis which support up to 70' angle each supported with pillow block bearings.... ( to feed around the 2JZ ) handled really well i was quite suprised, maybe something along these lines.......?

[Blacky]

I know a bloke who makes ADR approved dropper boxes so you can
Run a short column to the firewall then drop down however far you need and then run to the rack.

[MeFB]

Oi, Dave, less work on the steering and more on fitting the Norman please

[Philip]

how does that dropper box work mate? and how much are they??