[TR] TR4 Steering help..

[Carl Sereda]

Hi Andrew,


.. the steering rack, and pinion gear, seem to wear the most in the driving 'straight ahead' position - so that's where you likely feel the most slop. You can remove pinion gear (circlip holds it in) and rotate pinion gear so that the opposite teeth (much less worn) are used for the straight ahead position (reducing slop about half way). The rack likely worn too but less than pinion, again mostly in the straight ahead position. When turning, sloppiness not as apparent due to 'one-sided force' of pinion teeth against rack teeth.
 Flipping the pinion's position would be a challenging fix to do while rack is in car.  You might just opt for a new rack. Short ratio racks available but there is a reason for the factory's original design - easy steering!

Regarding steering rack mounting - I like the idea of staying with the original rubber mounts. Earlier TR4s were mounted solid - the factory later upgraded them to rubber mounts to reduce felt road vibrations. I never had a problem with the original rubber ones.



As mentioned by another lister the ball-joints also can get sloppy too so would check the clearances on those (of course the outside visible joints are easy enough, but there are two hidden joints inside the rubber bellows which are harder to get to).


For my own original rack, I bought a good used TR4 steering rack ($25) - only salvaged the rack bar, bought a new pinion ($35), and installed a new rack bushing ($8), and 2 new bellows ($15) [about 10 years ago]. 

For the 2 ball-joints ends of rack, I removed about half the shims to bring them back into factory spec. The 2 exterior ball joints were still good (likely not originals).



For the very sloppy steering wheel 'shaft' I removed the 2 worn-out column bushes, and installed 4 new ones (doubled them up at each end).



Good luck!


Carl
'63 TR4 since '74




TR4 owners:  is there any adjustment on the R&P steering on a TR4?  I have
been driving the newly-restored car and I think there is a little too much
slop in  the steering.

Any help would be great- thank you !     Andrew


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