Steering Rack Conversion

[Raven]

Anyone done one? how hard? what did u use? rough cost?

[Super Jamie]

if you check 1uzfe.com, there's a guy who's put an aw11 rack with aw86 steering column into a te27. he had to shorten the rack ends, so maybe it would be easier to put into a ke3/5

 

fook's told me about people using racks from little fwd cars like ford meteor or something

 

at the very least, you're going to need to weld mounts onto the crossmember, and either use a different steering column, or make up a uni to go to the stock steering column

 

measuring time at the wreckers, call an engineer before you spend anything

[Raven]

Sounds like a plan. :n: thanks again jamie. You're a legend haha.

[Super Jamie]

no probs dude, if you find something that easily fits, i'm sure we'd all be interested to hear about it :n:

 

check the width on the mounts of a ke70 rack, and the width steering arm to steering arm on your donor rack car, compare this to the width steering arm to steering arm on a ke30

 

actually, you might even be able to just shorten and rethread a ke70 rack?

[demuire]

I think from memory the KE70 racks are too long (in the body too) so your steering angles go all out of whack. My engineer has done a R&P conversion on a KE10, I think the first rack they tried was out of an Esky (but it's the wrong way around), and the rack that's currently in the car is out of... I can't remember, might have been a Ford Meteor? I forget. This is in a KE10 with a very worked Beams 3SGE, it's a 3J car. Very cool.

[Super Jamie]

you can shorten the rack ends and re-thread them so they go into the stock tie rods or however it works. at least this guy did in america, that may be illegal in australia, you'd have to ask an engineer

[demuire]

To work properly, you need the pivot points of the steering arms to be the same (or very similar) to the lower control arms. If your steering rack body is too long, the steering arms will pivot differently to the lower control arms, and as a result your wheels won't stay pointing in the same direction as the wheel goes up and down.

 

So yes, you can shorten the rack ends so that they physically fit, but that doesn't change the fact that the pivot points are all wrong.

 

I believe this is called bump steer. And yes, my car has more of it than I'd like due to my longer lower control arms.

[Raven]

Sounds all very interesting. I'm doin a wreckers run in about 10 mins with a mate. Will suss out a few things there since its a self serve wrecker and let you all know what I've found that fits later tonight.

 

Stay tuned!

[Raven]

Didnt get a chance to check it out. Was busy measuring up gearboxes for my mates cortina 5 Speed conversion. Will do it later during the week.

[Raven]

to adapt what to what?

[AE25]

interested in this as well. will be doing it to 4agte ke25 once a rack is found.

a ke70 was roughly 600mm between inner rack ends/pivots. kp61 starlet about 20mm shorter. but a ke25 is more like 500 on the std drag link :D

i believe the rack needs to be a lil shorter than the crossmember lower arm pivots to account for the ackerman angle on the steering arms. you'll notice the tie rod hole is not dead in line with the ball joint, but rather sticks in a bit so the inside wheel turns harder than outside when cornering.

i was emailed from a guy in aus who said he'd shortened a subaru justy rack to fit. anyone measured one of them? not that i'd like to use non toyota parts :)

[demuire]

i believe the rack needs to be a lil shorter than the crossmember lower arm pivots to account for the ackerman angle on the steering arms.

 

That sounds kinda correct.