Steering rack issues solutions and swaps....

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Yeah mine's the same, it's been like that for 3 years but on the whole it's acceptable and not dangerous during an off day. On a good day it's brilliant.

 

Think of it another way, I've driven this car every day for 3 years and racked up 70K in it. It's 11 years old and never broken down once, or felt like it ever would. Of those 70K, 50 of them have been thoroughly enjoyable. The other 20 slightly frustrating but not so bad that I considered getting shot of it.

 

I've driven other cars for a week, 2 weeks etc and they're exactly the same. You can't expect 1000s of parts to all meld together and perform perfectly every day. Simple things like ambient temperature can affect bush, damper oil and tyre stiffness. In an ideal world, we'd permanently drive on smooth roads, with no wind and an ambient temp of 0 degrees :-)

 

If the car is feeling off, just slow down and stick the tunes up and remember what a rare and decent looking car you're in. Other road users needn't know your car is p'd off :-)

 

Anyway, forgotten what I was going to say now....LOL!

[dr_mat 0]

Wow, Kev saying "put up with it". What's wrong with this picture..?!

[24V Renshaw 0]

The way I look at it is this. A race/rally car is carefully setup for a certain track/stage and everything is minutely adjusted to suit. Stick that race car on another track with the same setup and it would probably handle like a pig.

So the fact that we have a car capable of handling a vast array of "tracks" all with one setup is impressive.

Anyway this is a bit OT.

 

Had a brief chat with Coxy last night about steering racks and he has both a MK4 one and a Rado one. I asked him nicely to take a photo of the two together to compare the length etc.. Now he said the MK4 rack was a touch longer (not sure how much yet). How would that affect the steering geometry I wonder? Not much if at all I reckon.

 

Jay

[CoxyLaad 0]

well I have never noticed any rack problems with any of the VRs I have owned?

Although I do have a mk4 rack aswell as a vr rack, and I think I will be working out a way to get it fitted after reading all this.

[dr_mat 0]

A longer rack shouldn't change anything, because you would take up the extra length by adjusting the track rods. It may, however, slightly change the toe-in that you get in extreme cornering though, but I'd have to do some sums to work out if it's a problem or not.

 

Anyway, I would have absolutely no problem with my C if it was consistent. But it's not, that's the annoying thing. It's like night and day, and the external conditions make zero difference to it, same roads, same conditions, same fuel load, same cornering line .. and it feels totally different from one day to the next. It seems to have two distinct states. "good" (which is very very good, I have to say) and "bad"..

[24V Renshaw 0]

Sounds like something is very wrong somewhere to me....

 

Jay

[dr_mat 0]

I know..! And I'm out of ideas as to *what*, cos everything's been swapped!

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Well, I think that Toyota Yaris is calling you Matt.... :-)

 

Funny thing is, you usually find the same as me. The journeys to and from Stealth are usually the best ones all year! So what is it about those roads compared to yours/mine? IIRC, you don't drive particularly far to get to work every day and everyone knows VWs are at their best on long runs.

 

Most of my steering complaints are local road quality related. What seem like normal flat roads when dry, soon reveal constant truck gullies at night when it rains, and few cars I've been in cope well with those, except ones with huge sidewalls and marshmallow suspension. I'd just like a little more 'tolerance' of sloppy surfaces but I can't expect that due to everything else I've done to it, but I'm happy with the compromises. Just need to get this clonk licked and I'll be there.

[dr_mat 0]

I know you think this is bonkers, but I swear it's something that's helped by having lifted the car off it's front suspension. Perhaps it's cos you lift it by the body and the front suspension drops back into the right spot or something? Who knows?

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Maybe the top mounts sit slightly differently when lowered back down again?

 

Mine feels a bit jiggly and nervous when dropped down, but seems to settle itself after a few miles though. Maybe the bodyshell is just old and tired and crying out for early retirement in a junk yard? :-)

 

One of my MK1s was horrendous for that, it just felt wobbly and creaky and no amount of fixing fixed a fundamental platform weakness! But it was 17 years old when I had it though :-)

[dr_mat 0]

If something were horrendously weak I wouldn't expect it to go "good" at all...

Ah man, these cars are too fecking old.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Indeed they are! I reckon you should get a MK5 GTI. That would be right up your street driving quality wise....

 

Still, look on the bright side and spare a thought for the other 'you' who in a parallel universe who is on a Triumph forum complaining about his Dolomite :-)

[dr_mat 0]

Sometimes I think that, for the amount of grief I get from my ten year old VW I may as well be driving something *seriously* exotic and rare. I wouldn't mind so much the hassles if I knew they were so rare I'd have to find a machine shop to actually MAKE spares using the old broken ones as a pattern..

[GrahamU 6]

Is it possable to fit a lower strut brace and has anyone got one fitted ??

[corradophil 3]

Mine used to handle very badly, which was sorted by new suspension bushes all round and playing around with tyre pressures and ride height.

 

Now it handles very well and I can hustle it along with plenty of confidence.

 

It does clonk/knock when backing out of a drive on lock and also going over rough ground, ploud fields at anything over 50mph are particularly bad :wink:

 

I also notice it seems to handle differently on different days, yesterday I was convinced one of my tyres was flat or very low. I checked all 4 tyres and they were fine, last night it drove perfectly. The car also seems faster and smoother on some days when doing exactly the same journey.

 

The clonking I would love to get rid of although its really not that bad. The different feeling of the car each day I put down to subtle condition changes i.e. temperature and me being highly sensitive to every detail of how it drives.

 

I suspect there is a small amount of play in the rack which could be remidied by adjusting it a little.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

We'll all have grey, wispy side burns and shiney scalps by the time we get to the bottom of this one.

 

Boraboy, yep, there are a few available but all you need is a bit of bar tying the two front wishbone bolts together.

[dr_mat 0]

Must admit, when I first saw the front end design of the C (and the 143mph VR6 at that!) I was surprised to see the subframe sticking out there unsupported taking all the load of the engine and the wheel's cornering forces.

[coolrado 0]

i had a bit of a problem with intermittant clonking when pulling out of driveways or driving over small bumps, and also a vague feeling in the centre of the steering movement which meant i was constantly correcting the steering on the motorway, i had changed all of the components and i started to dread having to replace the steering rack, then i felt at the base of the steering column behind the pedals as i rocked the steering wheel side to side and i could instantly feel there was some slack where the base of the steering column connects to the rack, i nipped the pinch bolt up nice and tight and it instantly felt 100% better and its been absolutely fine since .

 

i also had exactly the same problem with the company caddy van even though it doesnt use a splined shaft but a square shaft with plates either side with bolts through the square shaft after nipping those bolts up it got rid of the clunking feeling completely.

 

a mate of mine also had a problem with his mk2 golf gti which sounds very similar to the "one day its fine the next day its rubbish" feeling which turned out to be the front and rear swing arm to chassis bolts werent torqued up fully and where causing the arms to shift under hard acceleration which altered the toe in and caused all sorts of handling issues they only required a little bit more tightening but it made a hell of a difference.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Some of us have done that trick already to no avail unfortunately, but good shout....

[corradophil 3]

Yep steering columb pinch bolt and other mounting bolts is well worth checking it made noticable difference on mine.

[_leon_ 0]

any diagrams showing this? i havent been in and around that area yet and would be great to see what you guys are talking about!!!

[VRTrickster 0]

Gonna check all all the nuts and bolts mentioned before I start spending even more money ! :wink:

[24V Renshaw 0]

Well I have a spare steering rack now (thanks Striderwilson) which had the "clunking" problem before it was removed. I will be stripping it down soon. Will post pics on here as I do it especially if I find anything interesting!

 

Jay

[martyjmcfly 0]

A bit late and may be off the current state of afairs but i had a GSF universal steering rack fitted modified to accept the track rod ends etc and i've had no problems what so ever. The car feels fapping fantastic stil, after 1000 miles. Do you reckon it being universal that any G60 VR6 mix up problems will have been unknowing ly avoided.

[CoxyLaad 0]

I will dig out this mk4 rack shortly and take some photos.

 

Only problem I will see is that the longer it is then the more bump steer you will experience. but I think we are only talking about a couple of centimeters in difference.