If you are clever, you make some kind of witness marks on the rack and clamps when the rack is removed, so that you can (re)align your rack laterally across the engine bay when you put it back.....
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| Steering rack clamp on the steering relay |
I didn't make marks. It wasn't that I wasn't clever (I don't think?) it was just that everything was going to be stripped and cleaned and I'd have lost the witness marks anyway. Besides, the manual tells you how to fit the rack laterally: with the caps of the brackets loosely in place over the rack, it is then slid laterally so that there is a distance 'b' between the centre of the pinion assembly and the centre line of the steering relay
The process and distance is given steps 6 and 7 of Operation D.444-1 in section 1 of volume 2 of manual 814. Okay - it's 122.5mm +/- 2.5mm.
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| Setting the steering rack lateral position |
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| Setting distance 'b' |
What is distance 'a'? Well distance 'a' relates to having the steering rack turned to a particular position so that when the steering wheel and column are connected, the single spoke of the steering wheel is in the correct position. I'm not fitting my steering wheel yet so didn't bother with distance 'a'.
Once the rack has been positioned laterally, the clamps holding it to the car can be tightened. I will need to loosen the clamps when it comes to fitting and aligning to the steering column, but I should be able to do that without losing the lateral position of the rack.
The steering levers were located on the splines of the steering relays. There aren't splines all the way round the relay shaft so they only fit on in one position. However the two levers (left and right) are 'handed' and can become muddled. Refer to the beginning of this post. On a related point, Citroen go as far as specifying that the bolts through the steering levers on the steering relays should be fitted with the nuts facing in towards the engine. That can be a little inconvenient....
But at least they won't fall out. Maybe that's the idea?
I carefully de-greased the pins of the track rod ball joints and tightened new lock nuts. Even when de-greased, the ball pins turned with the nuts and proved hard to torque. I developed a 'snatch' technique to quickly get some purchase. Once the nut began to tighten the ball stopped rotating and I was able to torque the nut up the necessary amount (again - the values are all in the manual....).
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| Steering lever connected to the track rod end |
And that was just about it!
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| Steering rack refitted..... |
I till need to make the hydraulic connections to the pipe but there are only a couple of those. And of course the radiator needed to back on again, before I can continue testing, but that will be a relatively quick job.
I'm still not happy with that 'brunswick green' colour though. It REALLY jumps out at me every time I look at the rack. Can you see what I mean? I remembered that at some past point I'd bought a tin of brunswick green and still had it - unopened. I'd bought it back when I was buying rattle cans a couple of years ago - so it should be the same colour.
At some future point I may pull that rack and repaint it.
