I bought a remanufactured power steering rack for my 93 4 door ex off of ebay. First time doing one and it was a pain in the ***. Once I got my old rack out I should have layed it by the new one to compare but I didn't. I bolted the new one in and hooked up the power steering lines. That all went fine. Then i went to install the outer tie rods on the rack ends. The driver side rack end is much closer to the knuckle than the passenger side. Am I retarded and not seeing something obvious? 2 pictures below. The driver side tie rod end is threaded just 2 spins and doesn't have enough length to have the hub point straight. The passenger side tie rod end i threaded almost completely on and the length is too long. It also won't allow the hub to point straight.

 

You sure the steering rack was centered when you installed it? I assume you turned the wheel lock to lock to be sure it's not just cranked to the left?

 

Doh. Can it be installed off center?I didn't examine it at all. I just pulled it out the box and put it on. Is there some adjustment? I slid the steering column part up in to the cabin(tightened the steering column to it) and mounted the driver side with the 2 mounting locations on the rack. Then put the "U" bracket on the passenger side.

Edit: I'll go spin the wheel and see what happens. Should have read instructions. Thanks.

 

Not centered as in the rack bolting to the subframe. Centered as in the steering wheel and internals centered before you put the column onto the pinion shaft. I'm willing to bet your lock to lock is off to the left. By that I mean when you spin the wheel to the left it will only go say 1.2 tuns before locking and then to the right it will go 2.3 turns or so.

To center it, you will have to find the sweet spot that it is the same amount of turns to the left as it is to the right. Then unbolt the column from the pinion shaft, center the column steering wheel, and rebolt (reclamp).

Tip: To make life easier, use a piece of packing tape as your center line. Since your steering wheel is not going to be centered when you are trying to find perfect center, the tape placed on the top of the steering wheel will give you a good reference of turns. And the tape can easily be moved a few inches either way until you find perfect center. As well as the tape will help you identify exactly how many turns you get to the left and right to compare and adjust.

 

Man I feel dumb, obviously spinning the wheel makes the ends move out/in.
Tomcat you're right. My steering wheel is off but not by a lot. Clockwise goes about 1.75. Counter clockwise goes 1.8x rotations. I don't care about the car enough to deal with it anymore, so i'll neglect the poor thing. Thanks guys.

 

Probably too late for this, but if you spin the wheel while it is not attached to the rack, or the rack is out of sync with the wheel, the "clock spring" (which makes electrical connections between the electric stuff on the steering wheel to the rest of the car) will break. That will disable your air bag, horn, and cruise control buttons if equipped.

So there's a very specific process to be followed whenever the rack must be uncoupled from the steering column.

 

I think this may be happening. When approaching full lock while turning the wheel clockwise, the steering wheel has a little resistance and makes a creeking noise. I'm going to detatch the column tomorrow and get everything right.

 

I think you are supposed to center the rack and wheel before disconnecting old rack, yes? Center wheel and then lock it via the ignition key lock...

 

That doesn't aid when the remanufactured rack is not centered though.

I suspect you have to isolate center of the remanufactured rack without the steering column involved to avoid damage to the clock spring. Or, you remove the clock spring temporarily.

 

I would agree.

I removed and re-installed my rack over the weekend just to see if I could do it before throwing down the $ on a reman rack.

What I did was measure the toe-in at front and back of the tires while the wheels were as straight forward as I could get them. Then I counted the number of tuns it took to remove the TREs (17), you have to hold the inner rack end to make sure it does not turn. Then I pulled the rack. Then I put the rack back in, reinstalled the TREs w/ 17 turns each side. Then I pointed the wheels straight forward as best as I could, and re-attached the column with the steering wheel still centered.

Make sense?

 

That wouldn't matter if you centered everything before replacing, you still have to center the new rack itself. Repeated for the 2nd time.

 

Yes, the conversation has turned to how you go about centering the replacement rack without damaging the clock spring.

 

aah, my bad. Well....hope its not too little too late.