A1 manual steering rack wear..

[wolf_walker]

So.....    What I thought was inner tie rod wear on the drivers side is the rack banging around.
It really seems to turn ok in my limited testing so far, but you can thunk the shaft fore and aft.
I'm led to believe there is a bushing in there the shaft rides on that wears.
I'm led to believe by the guy on ebay selling a delrin replacement that it's the pass side usually, or only,
and not the drivers side like mine seems to be.

I've heard a LOT of bad things bout the Meyle racks.
Cardon and Fenco both do remans but I haven't heard much about them.

At the moment, I'm inclined to pull mine, which makes my head hurt thinking about, I replaced one once years ago.
Lube it, and have a machine shop cut me a couple pieces of delrin to bush each side and stake or set screw them in place.

Thoughts?  I'd love for someone to say the Cardon or Meyle rack is peachy keen now and they work well and the shift brackets are in the
right spot, but I haven't heard it yet.

[CRSMP5]

the story... 18 years ago febi ruined mk1 racks... the bushing you speak of on ebay would fail with in 6mo... crappy rubber/plastic... so back then it was get derlin ones made up... remove boot.. if not "rusted" you could pull inner joint.. knock in new bushing then put back together.. cake job...

if rusty/pitted... then you had to remove rack to polish the shaft up.. else it would eat the bushing...

only pass side... drivers has a spring loaded mech that sets its setting... sadly gotta remove rack to get to it...

i cannot say ive ever seen a loose drivers side.. UNLESS its one of the "few 84" cast aluminum housed racks... they fail in horrific ways.. the steel tube style rack is best... the aluminum one... never trust... they shear the teeth off the pinion...

[wolf_walker]

I'll check it again tomorrow, but the noise/play/wiggle is on the drivers side for sure.  Drag.. 

[fatmobile]

Then maybe you can adjust it out.
 I've adjusted it on the car before.

[wolf_walker]

The preload adjustment would effect fore/aft movement of the rack?

[wolf_walker]

Well, I did some poking today.

The inner's are original at 400K miles, one ball joint was too btw.  They don't make *** like they used to.
The inners are not tight but I can feel zero play with them disconnected at the spindle at any angle, I greased em and am leaving them
instead of using the chinese Meyle one's I have.  Got new boots, got TRW outers, they had been replaced with Moog stuff that was
stuff and weird feeling, and one boot was MIA.  Rack boots were intact, though they were the wrong boots unless they changed
from using the round rubber outer attachment point sometime.

I cleaned and greased as far as I could on the rack on both sides, it feels better in the air.  I'm inclined to adjust the preload I think, but
it's a job as you guys likely know.  I'll tackle it this weekend maybe.  Hopefully I can get away with this for awhile, at least I'll know it's not a
tierod.  Might order that delrin bushing, though mine is still intact on the pass side, little loose but not bad, go figure.

It's a damn shame you can't get parts nearly as good as the originals.

[wolf_walker]

I was about to center the rack when I noticed I have no locknuts on the inner tierods, they seem to be just screwed all the way in on the rack tight... Sigh.

Anyone have any inner locknuts they could sell me before I set fire to this thing?

[CRSMP5]

is the housing of the rack steel or aluminum??

yes that adjustment is what you seek to play with for the play...

derlin = rest of life vs the nylon thats stock...

no spare pieces sorry...

p.s.  banned on whoretex else i would reply there...

[wolf_walker]

It's the regular steel housing, least the pass side.  I saw the VW stamp so it is original.

Porsche used the same lock nuts on the manual rack for the 944/924 so hopefully I can get some from work sent out here.
Like pulling freakin teeth getting anything done here.

[rs899]

I had my buddy with a lathe make me a brass bushing 10 years ago on the pickup.  It's still holding up.  Now I need another for the Cabriolet project.  I refreshed the rack on that one and what I thought was a sloppy inner tie rod was it just not tightened with the lock nut.  Somebody put greaseable MOOG inner joints on it probably in the late 80s. They are still good.  The boots on those were made thich and don't even seal at the bottom.  The grease provides the seal.  They work! 

[bbob203]

there's a guy on ebay selling delrin bushings for a1 steering racks. search delrin bushing jetta on ebay it will pop up.

[wolf_walker]

Got my nifty delrin bushing for the rack tube.  Got wheel bearings and hubs on the way in today.
Slowly but surely..

FYI the complete Bil HD strut housings seem to be no longer in production, there are still some floating around online, if you are in the mind for a big yeller strut you might pick up a pair soonish.  The inserts are still available.