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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Rack early type rebuild/refurb 2023

Further to the other rack thread, now archived -- "New steering rack. Who from? 2022."

My worn original early rack had endfloat and backlash. I was going to pay for a rebuild/refurb.

Having spoken to several reburbishers, I found they couldn't supply a new pinion or rack because they are no longer made for the early racks, and use good used ones instead. The new bits they can fit, brass damper pads, are very cheap, and don't need replacing anyway, unless they are SERIOUSLY worn, because taking shims out compensates for the wear. A large waste of money paying for a refurb, that uses worn parts and new black paint to make it look nice.

Bob Beaumont kindly sold me a good used early rack.

Having stripped my original already, and using the one I got from Bob as a reference I adjusted my original rack and now have a good one on the Sprite and good one spare.

The only 'difficult' bit (and it isn't hard at all), in the refurb is undoing the inner ball joint on the track rod to deshim it, if there's endlfoat here. You need trusty stilsons and a home made tool. A bit of angle iron or similar will do, with a centre hole, plus two small holes for hardened steel pins. They need to be HARD, because the joint cover is VERY tight, and the first pins I used just sheered. So I made new pins made from masonry nails.

More pictures to follow.












anamnesis

Fits like this, and a washer to stop the pins being caught on the rack. See next pictures.





anamnesis

Screw the rack on.

And here's where the stilsons do their job tightening one up.

Questions on a post card. :-)





anamnesis

Anam
I gave up trying to undo my looser ball joint as they are as tight as hell. But your home made tool is the answer I guess. Well done!
Bill Bretherton

I got the idea from the Diff flange tool Bill.

There are a few threads in the archives discussing earthing, and the lack of, causing the horn not to work.

The column is tight on the pinion and the rack body needs to be earthed. But even earthing the rack body with a flying lead won't give you a good **consistent** column earth, if the rack is very worn. That's because the pinion has to be constantly a good electrical connection to the rack bar and or rack housing.

Before I rebuilt my rack I wasn't sure why I had an intermittently working hooter. The rack body was definitely a good earth. 0.006 ohms to earth. And the resistance of the steering column to the pinion showed about the same (bolt definitely tight). Still sometimes no hooter. But if I turned the steering wheel, or pulled or pushed on the steering wheel it would work. My rack had enough internal play that the grease/oil, was able to isolate the pinion from the earth of the rack body. Now it's all tight I have a consistent earth.

I wrapped a turn of masking tape round my rack. Even though I find the clamp cap ends, cut through the paper and do make a good earth, I removed a small area of masking tape and added a sliver of tinned copper wire, which crushed by the cap, makes for a guaranteed good earth. I prefer that to a flying lead.



anamnesis

I don't have a wire earth but horn works - pinion to rack is pretty snug fit.
Bill Bretherton

For the earth you could connect a flexible wire directly to the steering column and wind it round a number of times giving a flexible coil to cope with the rotation and fix the other end to the chassis.

I've seen similar on a Citroen 2CV where there is no rubber flexible brake hose rather the metal brake line is coiled where it passes through the swing arm pivot tube so there's enough flexility to allow suspension movement without the brake tubing fatiguing.
David Billington

Yeah you could David, but it's not needed. Most people never have a hooter earth problem, and mine only appeared because my rack was so 'loose' internally.
anamnesis

I found it very difficult to service the original rack for lack of the proper tool to remove and tighten the collars.

I ended up purchasing a new replacement rack. These are made in Argentina (Lucum/Staco) and I have had excellent results on both the midget and the B. What is most noticeable is the lighter weight. The racks fit perfectly but are not similar internally. They are inexpensive and remain very tight so it is an easy and permanent fix (the one on the B has 130,000 miles on it and has no play).
Glenn Mallory

Yes I know Glenn. But I preferred to keep and rebuild my original, which apart from the oil to fill it, didn't cost me a penny to strip, rebuild, and adjust.

See my picture below for the home made tool, Very cheap to make.
anamnesis

Good for you for making the tool and arranging a proper repair. The original rack (through 1971) was a heavy and robust assembly. The general wear in mine beyond 200,000 miles made the full replacement a suitable solution in my case.
Glenn Mallory

I didn't arrange it, I did it myself. Must have been around the same mileage on mine too, I just deshimmed it. I wondered when they changed to the later rack. Is the later rack much lighter? I was surprised how heavy it is.
anamnesis

This takes me back to 1969. I had bought a Mini with a sloppy inner rack balljoint. How to undo it without taking the rack out of the car? My engineer dad made up a meaty piece of steel tube that fitted over the joint, with hard steel teeth that engaged with slots in the joint cap, held in place by another tube. The tube was long enough to be turned with a tommy bar from outside the wheel arch. I kept that tool for decades and never used it again. I wonder where it is?
Les Rose

If you can find it Les, go on a mini forum and offer it for sale. 😉
anamnesis

Big risk of deforming cap nut if using Stillson type wrench and unable to monitor actual torque on reassembly.
I made a wrenching bar with a precision bored hole to fit with a keyway and tapered key that could be locked into recess.
Square hole in bar enables torque wrench tightening.
Previous advice re mounting of inner ball seat failed to identify that BSF nut required as original part was from a Morris Minor!
S G KEIL

You do it your way SG.

♫ I did it my way.♫ 😁.

Yes it would be very nice to have all the 'correct' tools for everything. But in the real world for most people, for me for example, without a lathe or other engineering equipment to make said correct tools, ---

-- There's no risk at all of distortion with stilsons, it's a bloody strong nut. Loads of examples of other people using stilsons, and no ill effects.

As for torque tightness, I don't recall seeing a quoted figure. But in any case, I can guarantee my cup nut won't come undone. Apart from how tight I got it using stilsons, there is a lock tab too. Plus, the track rod doesn't rotate. Where's the worry?

Ball seat comment not understood. I had no need to change it. I only reduced shim thickness. Actually, horror upon stilson horror. -- I lapped a tiny amount off the rear end of the cup nut, using wet/dry paper on a dead flat surface, to produce the same effect as a thinner shim. 🙂.




anamnesis

PS. No stilsons were harmed in the making of my post. 😉
anamnesis

For Les.
anamnesis

This thread was discussed between 24/01/2023 and 29/05/2023

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG Midget and Sprite Technical BBS is active now.