steering issue

[Neville Smith]

Morning guys,

Can anyone advise on a steering issue that has developed on my car, all of a sudden I'm only getting one complete turn of the wheel to the left instead of the usual turn and a half, it doesn't affect driving just low speed manouvering? Only noticed it this morning as I tried to turn out of my drive, all was well yesterday?

I'm guessing a new steering rack is needed :-(

[Steve and Matt Pegrum]

Darn it I thought we were the only ones with Electric PAS on a Dutton! 

I think ours is a 2.4 rack. Good combo

[Roy Kemp]

Not done it yet, but will be starting shortly. Any hints or tips? Or even better, a full step-by-step guide laden with loads of pictures? :)

[James Doulton]

And I could include in the Dutton Torque so your pioneering would be recorded for all time.

[Steve and Matt Pegrum]

Hmm well it was done about 2 yrs ago

We rebuilt the front bulkhead and fitted the whole Corsa column......

[Roy Kemp]

Seriously, any advice would be brilliant. There's a few guides out there about fitting the column into Mk1 / 2 Escort rally cars but they have nice solid pedal boxes and roll cages to brace the column against, where we've got a load of flimsy fibreglass!

[Roy Kemp]

Very true - will make a decent sandwich plate for the pedal box if there's no other option for bracing.

[Steve and Matt Pegrum]

Unless you use a column with joints in like ours I dont actually think the PAS makes much difference to the bulkhead issue as all the forces are internal. If you do though then it all needs a solid mounting.

There's various Escort oriented web pages about modding a ford column to take the Corsa motor bit

On ours we made a bulge in the side of the body for the motor to go into although I think it could have probably been mounted the other way round which might have avoided that. We thought the column switches would have ended up upside down but I now realise that the plastic bits of a Corsa column are a press fit and could probably be twisted round

Anyway here's a pic showing the setup at a fairly early stage. You can see the steering shaft and UJs

Of course I had to link it to the Ford rack, which I did with a long ford compatible splined shaft from Kit spares or some such welded (not by me) to the stump the input shaft of a scrap Corsa steering rack that I cut off specially so that it could connect directly to the Corsa steering shaft UJ. This also required an extra bracket and bearing about half way down to hold it all in place since it was now very bendy due to the UJs. Not visible in this pic though

The steel bulkhead holds it all solid at the top. You might be able to replicate that with a fibreglass bulkhead with suitable reinforcement but as I say, if you use one of the Escort methods, you might not need to as the whole shaft remains rigid

[Steve and Matt Pegrum]

And here's another showing the PAS bulge near the base of the windscreen frame

The steering is now quite light even with a 2.4 rack which is one reason we are interested in increased Caster Angle. I don't buy the 'too sensitive' thing BTW as you soon get used to it.

We are still fiddling with the Controller unit using one of those ebay controllers for that purpose although the guy on SuperSeventhHeaven has some better ideas that retain the original Speed sensitivity adjustment.

Oh yes and a tip for the day is to make sure rain water does NOT get into the controller unit under the column as that knackers the PCB very quickly due to electrolysis

[Roy Kemp]

That's excellent info - thanks very much. I've had a good look on Super7thHeaven - all very useful!

I'm planning omitting the vehicle speed sense input, so it stays on the maximum assistance map the whole time. This is acceptable as it's an autotest car and it never get out of 2nd gear. If I ever need to drive it quicker I'll have a "kill" switch on the 12V feed to disable the PAS altogether.

[Dave Adams]

castor can be upto 5 or even 8 degrees on our cars, they are light enough for it not to be an issue steering wise. there are some undesirable side effects though, other things like camber can alter quite dramatically and at full lock and the wheels can "lift or fall" a fair bit......that said my cars are re-built to have about 5 degrees of castor and -1 degree of camber. with the right suspension spring rates they can handle remarkably well.

the theory of suspension is a dark art..... :-)

One thing i will look to changing on my cars in future is the front suspension set up, i have been looking at cars in the scrap yards for a FWD hub assy that will adapt to the front of our cars, it should be possible to get the KPI to sit in the middle of the tyre foot print and i feel it will improve the steering a little more.....it will also allow a greater choice of ally wheels, since FWD cars often have a large off set unsuitable to our cars unless your happy with big wheel spacers.