Lancia Beta Forum

Dear wise men,
I have taken the spare ZF power steering rack out of the donor VX, and given it a good clean. I do not know if it has any play in it as I never driven the car before it was broken. However the gaiters are split and the RH mounting rubber needs replacing. I have got most of the large bolts replated, sourced new ball joints for the steering arms, plated the adjuster collars and fitted uprated PU bushes to the arms as well.
The heat from the engine bay has obviously damaged the plating on the pipes as can be seen if my two photos, but before taking these apart I want to know what the procedure might be, or how "do-able" the tolerance checking of the rack is? Haynes does not cover the power rack stripdown, (they recommend leaving it to a Lancia specialist), and my Lancia workshop manual only covers the manual option.
What do I do? Is there any easy way of ascertaining it's serviceability?
Yours in hope!
Chas and Anne. ::)

Hi Chas
I was considering having mine done while it is off the car, but also found no useful information in the manuals, so phoned a couple of companies that recondition racks. Both wanted sizable amounts of money! One however was quite helpful and said that if you pull back the boots and there is no power steering fluid in the tube, then the seals are OK. You can also inspect the teeth on the rack for excessive ware. I would have thought if you grip the pinion with locking pliers, you should be able to feel if there is any play in the system.
Mine was good, so greased the rack, replaced the boots and cleaned the outside up. The pipes and the exposed end of the tube (passenger side) were looking worse for wear so I rubbed them down and painted with silver cad paint (from Frost) - not original but looks better than it was! I'll post a picture later.
Hope thats of some help.
Steve

Dear Steve,
That is useful info regarding the seals. I will check that. If they are ok then I will pop the four pipes off and get them re plated along with the six brake bolts in the next batch of plating. ( I thought I had finished going up the M5 on that errand!)
All the best,
Chas. ;D

Photo of my refurbed rack

Well done Chas, where did you source from the track arms bushings?

Lukas,
If I recall I bought them from Mark at Betaboyz.
Best,
Chas. ;)