240/260Z Steering Rack adjustment/rebuild/replace

[Rob Gaskin]

Hi guys, the steering rack on the Sam (early 260Z) has 'play' in the inner nearside joint. My old standard 240Z had the same.

My questions are (yes I'm being lazy and not searching):

Is the joint adjustable?

If not can it be rebuilt?

If not are new/reconditioned racks available?

Is the rack the same as a 240Z rack?

 

[johnymd]

Have the same question.

The rack on my RHD 280z has plan that I would like to address. You can move the steering wheel a little left and right without the wheels moving. It's only a small amount but it causes the car to drift a bit when going in a straight line.

 

[jonbills]

There are some threads on classiczcars.com on rebuilding the racks.

 

[Albrecht]

Hi guys, the steering rack on the Sam (early 260Z)...

Is the rack the same as a 240Z rack?

Watch out for mis-match in data when reading about '240Z' and '260Z' racks. You get the (usual) bias in information towards North American market models which isn't necessarily directly applicable to RHD cars, but also 'early' vs 'late' rack designs which are fundamentally different.

There's not much that you can do with the rack gear and pinion gear itself, and re-bushing/blueprinting them is fairly involved. You can put a new pinion gear and seal in, but in my experience any problems are not usually with the pinion bearing unless its been sitting in water. Replacing the side rods/sockets usually does the job, if you can find replacements.

Key point for me is rack ratio. A proper UK market 'early' 2str 260Z should have a nice - relatively 'quick' - ratio. If rebuilding a donor rack, watch out for 'slower' rack ratios from other variants. Big difference in driving feel from the small differences in ratio in my experience. Surprisingly so.

 

[Alphabettispaghetti]

Have you checked it adjusted the ‘lash screw’?

There’s a big screw head with a spring that preloads the rack and pinion together.

Is it just in the centre?

 

[johnymd]

Thanks for the info.

I think all my RHD racks are of the later design (not early 240z) and the LHD ones will all be non-early US racks.

I suspected there was not a lot you could do but thought I'd ask. I had already nipped up the large screw but this did very little. I may have to pull one apart to see where the slack is and try to engineer a cure. For the time being I'll probably put one of my "better" RHD racks on.

 

[Albrecht]

I had already nipped up the large screw but this did very little. I may have to pull one apart to see where the slack is and try to engineer a cure.

The big screw just pushes the bronze 'shoe' against the rack. Taken to extreme it would start to bend the rack, but the whole thing just tightens up so that the rack can't slide smoothly anymore.

Most problems seem to be linked to the inner tie rods (what Nissan called the side rods and sockets) and they can be replaced with pattern parts, but taking them apart, cleaning them out and reassembling them to factory specs (lash is adjustable) has been effective for me. They can get pretty grotty if the boots don't keep the dirt out.