Replace the steering rack

Reading the factory manual will have you believing that it's just undo a couple of bolts and bosh, out it comes.

Err, no. Be prepared to be very uncomfortable:

Removing the rack

First, loosen the front wheel nuts then jack up the front of the car and place on axle stands. Leave a good amount of space at least on one side as you need room to withdraw the rack.

Remove the front wheels.

Now you need to split the track rod ends from the steering arms. Slacken the nuts off to the end of the thread. At this point, it's worth giving the nut a whack upwards with a copper mallet, as this is sometimes enough to free the joint without reaching for your balljoint splitter. If this doesn't work, you're best to use a scissor-type splitter to free the joint.

Now, with both track rod ends released you need to free the bottom steering column UJ from the rack pinion. To do this remove the bottom pinch bolt (13mm) from the bottom UJ. You'll need to get a 13mm spanner on the nut to stop it turning with the bolt.

Now you can remove the 4 bolts that hold the steering rack to the bulkhead. There's two on the bulkhead on the passenger side, and 2 on the bulkhead on the driver's side. The bottom ones need a 13mm socket, the top ones are 17mm socket. I used 2 12" extensions and a 6" extension on the sockets so I could sit in the seats and do it in relative comfort without being upside down in the footwells. Once you've cracked the bolts off and start undoing them, you may find that they're quite hard to turn until they're almost out. This is because they are coated in threadlock and is quite normal.

WIth the bolts out, you should be able to wiggle the rack towards the front of the car a bit, and then wiggle the bottom steering column UJ so that it comes off the rack pinion and you can swing it out of the way.

I then pulled out the rubber grommet around the hole in the bulkhead that the pinion comes through, as this will give you a bit more room in a minute.

Theory goes you should now be able to push the rack towards the front of the car so the pinion clears the bulkhead hole, then slide the rack out.

However, no amount of wiggling back and forth worked on mine. The problem is a rivnut on the front face of the steering rack channel that prevents the rack moving far enough forwards to clear the bulkhead. If you look in the front services compartment, you'll see it just above the outlet from the heater motor. This rivnut isn't needed on right hand drive cars.

I used a sharp chisel to knock the front face off it (in the front services compartment). Then a long screwdriver and a healthy whack to the back of it down the steering rack channel got rid of it.

You should now be able to get in the footwell and tilt the steering rack pinion upwards and it should just clear the hole in the bulkhead. Then just withdraw the rack along the channel.

Now for the reconditioning...

The rack is made by Titan Motorsport, and they will sell all parts to the public on the condition of a £25 minimum order value. And to be honest, they are very helpful too!

I removed my rack as there was play, which I suspected to be the nylon cups at the inner end of each track rod.

I ordered 2 of the cups (£3.50 each), 2 of the springs that sit behind the cups (£ ), 2 of the locking pins that lock the cups to the locking nuts (£ each), and 2 gaitors (£4.50 each).

This seems to be the most common cause of play in the rack.

Start by removing the cable ties that hold the gaitors on and sliding the gaitors back to the track rod ends (I left the track rod ends in situ, the theory being the tracking wouldn't be too far out when I put it back together).

This exposes the inner ends of the track rods and the cup joint that they sit in.

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