J-car rack and pinion

The J-car is the only center-take-off that I know of with enough travel to do the job, and work on a rear-steer car.

The only other option would be to fabricate a center-take-off link to work on a side-take-off rack such as Hakan Ostlund did. Or we could just use a side-take-off rack from a Taurus like chepsk8 did. Almost every car on the road today uses them.

I may have jumped the gun on this.



When I get home this evening I'm going to try an experiment. I'm going to remove the pinion and turn the rack 180 degrees so that the opening in the housing and the bolts for the centerlink face the firewall. Then try to reinstall the pinion from the backside.

Don't know if it'll work but it's worth a shot.

Intrepid rack MAYBE???

I may have jumped the gun on this.

When I get home this evening I'm going to try an experiment. I'm going to remove the pinion and turn the rack 180 degrees so that the opening in the housing and the bolts for the centerlink face the firewall. Then try to reinstall the pinion from the backside so that it "should" work like the Cavalier.





Don't know if it'll work but it's worth a shot.

I think they started in 1982.

Cavalier
Beretta
Cimmaron
Skyhawk
Sunbird
Sunfire
J2000
Firenza
Probably a couple more.

Over the years some models have been dropped or the names have changed but for the most part they are still in production. There were occasional changes in the rack itself (mostly in the mounting brackets) but overall it’s the same. The one in the photos posted here is a 1992 model.

Nope. Intrepid rack can't be reversed. The pinion head where the steering shaft attaches prevents it. Still working on possibilities with it though.

One of the techs at Maval says he has a center take off rack for a rear steer vehicle with 6.25 inches of travel. That's all I know for now. I'm waiting on some more details from him.

No word back from Dave at Maval yet on the 6.25 inch rack. However, when I spoke to him on the phone yesterday he said we would likely never notice the loss in radius with the j-car rack. The 3/8 inch difference in travel only comes out to 3/16 inch loss per direction. I guess he feels I'm splitting hairs.

I told him I wanted to look at it anyway. Perhaps the centerlink/tierod bolts are farther away than 2 inches like the j-car. That would ease the minds of some who are concerned about all the forces being concentrated in the very center of the rack. I really think the rack is plenty strong for my purposes. Here's the modifications I worked out with a shop down the street but think at this point I may just go with a stock rack and fab a centerlink something like Duane did for his '70.


Proposed mods


Duane Simon's setup

Duane's centerlink is simple and STRONG. All parts are off-the-shelf products that you can find anywhere. Advance Auto Parts has reman racks from Cardone for $72.88. The linkage connecting the column is right off a junked buick centry. He modified the column. Then fabricated his centerlink, rack mount, and crossmember. All else is the original mustang linkage. He's been driving it for a year now and really enjoys it.