Rack & Pinion Question

mdjay · Jan 3, 2006

Z06killinSBF said:
My buddy has the TCP on his 68' I cant see how it doesnt break.

I think you're a little confused by the TCP design.

It's made from billet and "it be very strong."

While the randall's is less expensive and a strong no frills version indeed.

Z06killinSBF · Jan 3, 2006

mdjay said:
I think you're a little confused by the TCP design.

It's made from billet and "it be very strong."

While the randall's is less expensive and a strong no frills version indeed.

Hmm.... guess I need to take a closer look.

Mustang67 · Jan 3, 2006

Thanks for all the info.

The aligment shop said I should create a new set of Tie Rod arms for the Speed Direct Rack. Go from the outer Tie Rod (spindle) to the center link on the rack and do away with the steel bracket. This would require me to turn the rack more in a vertical position. Otherwise the arms would hit the rack.

You can see the flexing of the steel plate (not the mount that is holding the rack) but where the tie rods connect to the steel plate on the rack. This is what is creating the propeller effect. If you own a Speed Direct rack you can see this by jacking both front wheels off the ground and move one of the wheels side to side. The steel plate will flex some what like a propeller.

Two other issues have surfaced:
1. The bolts have come loose twice from the center link. I made sure that I used a lot of thread lock. I think I have a solution I found on another poduction car. It is a bracket that will go over the bolts and keep them from coming loose.
2. The rack itself has some play because of the design. The center link area where the bolts connect to the rack will move up and down about a quarter of an inch.

One other comment..I am using the Shelby 1" drop.

headgrinder · Jan 6, 2006

steeroids rack

I also had a loose center bracket I found that the bolts holding it to rack at center would work loose over a few dozen miles. I called speed direct and they did not seem to have an answer except that I should torque with red loctite.I was a little worried about red so I had used blue. I then changed to red still same problem.finally I removed center bracket to machine the mounting boss at a true 90 dgree to rack thats when I noticed that the inner spherical joint was actually hitting bracket at extreme ends of travel this caused the bracket to wobble and work loose center bolts. After clearancing bracket and a little grinding on edges of joint I went ahead with making sure that center boss was machined to90degrees and reinstalled. that was about 3-4 months back and since then no more looseness in bracket . Itend to agree with others that the speed direct needs alittle more engineering.

ps it is in a 65 c coupe stock engine shelby drop, w/620 coils,17" vintage 45"\ 245/35 tires,kyb 5 leaf drop springs and a 1 1/8 fr sway bar and granada discs

headgrinder · Jun 4, 2006

steeroids fix

I have finally gotten all my problems with steeroids rack fixed.
1 Bind from ujoints angle is too steep causes binding I made my own firewall plate with more offset of hole that column passses thru this lessened angle and now steering wheel turns smoothly.

2 Center bolt kept loosening up and too much propeller effect of center link/bracket. I borrowed reman j car rack from my old parts store dissasembled and noted that bushing that slides in rack was worn out allowing lots of up/down play. I had a new bushing made of delron? with longer bearing surface and tighter fit in rack. then I had sleeves made to capture stand offs from bracket

3 mounting bracket on drivers side flexes. Took a new bracket that steeroids sent me and beefed it up with more mountin bolts using 3 of old steering boxbolt holes( all existing no new holes drilled) I have pics but they are too big to post.
If interested I can email them.

Now it works like it should Randy at steeroids was lots of help and very interesed in getting rack install right.

reenmachine · Jun 4, 2006

headgrinder said:
I have finally gotten all my problems with steeroids rack fixed.
1 Bind from ujoints angle is too steep causes binding I made my own firewall plate with more offset of hole that column passses thru this lessened angle and now steering wheel turns smoothly.

2 Center bolt kept loosening up and too much propeller effect of center link/bracket. I borrowed reman j car rack from my old parts store dissasembled and noted that bushing that slides in rack was worn out allowing lots of up/down play. I had a new bushing made of delron? with longer bearing surface and tighter fit in rack. then I had sleeves made to capture stand offs from bracket

3 mounting bracket on drivers side flexes. Took a new bracket that steeroids sent me and beefed it up with more mountin bolts using 3 of old steering boxbolt holes( all existing no new holes drilled) I have pics but they are too big to post.
If interested I can email them.

Now it works like it should Randy at steeroids was lots of help and very interesed in getting rack install right.

Gee, what a bargain it turned out to be!

We've tried pretty much every rack out there and had all of the above problems with Steeroids. And yes, the bracket flex was visible. The Randall's Rack is my preferred system by far, and the difference in feel on the road over the Steeroids is very noticeable. TCP is nice of course, and functions very well, but I feel that the Randall's Rack performs just as well for a better price. It's just not so sexy looking.

shepscott · Jun 4, 2006

So a quick recap opinions---is the randall's rack for the money better than the total control rack or, is the TCP worth the extra money?

bnickel · Jun 4, 2006

shepscott said:
So a quick recap opinions---is the randall's rack for the money better than the total control rack or, is the TCP worth the extra money?

for street car the randalls unit would probably be the best for the money since it is pretty much a j-car albeit a modified j-car rack so any local steering/cv joint rebuilder should be able to rebuild it if need be in the future.

for an all out race car, provided the class allows a rack, the TCP unit would be the best for the money, IMO.

if you want the bling factor, then the TCP rack is the way to go.

my reasoning behind this is mostly because of the Woodward racing power steering servo as it is a very expensive piece and doesn't use any stock type replacement part.

however if you want a manual rack instead of a power unit the TCP rack is the only game in town, really. Flaming River has a manual rack and they just came out with a power version, IMO both are junk and not worth the trouble or the money. i would stick with the stock worn out steering stuff before using the FR rack kits, although their new gear boxes are apparently pretty nice. Uni-steer also just came out with a new manual rack but i haven't heard sufficient feedback from anyone who has used one to give an opinion yet.

66Runt · Jun 4, 2006

reenmachine said:
Gee, what a bargain it turned out to be!

We've tried pretty much every rack out there and had all of the above problems with Steeroids. And yes, the bracket flex was visible. The Randall's Rack is my preferred system by far, and the difference in feel on the road over the Steeroids is very noticeable. TCP is nice of course, and functions very well, but I feel that the Randall's Rack performs just as well for a better price. It's just not so sexy looking.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. After installing my Randall's rack, I be holdin' an extra 500 smackers plus some. That's be a whole lot a beautiful to me!

But seriously, I'm very happy so far (about 1,000 twisty miles) with Randall's rack. I was even able to make it work with the "Z bar" clutch linkage by fabricating a bracket and modifying the "Z bar". After talking with Randall about this, he is looking to incorporate an even better design into the driver side bracket.
There are a couple of considerations though. Geometry is designed for a 1" upper control arm drop and a 1" spring drop. Otherwise you are going to need to correct for bump steer. This brings up the issue of how to do that, seeing as you use late model mustang inner tie rod ends and original spindles. So the bump steer kit you'd get would have to be custom on anything other than the above drop. Using a bump steer kit that moves the tie rod in, like pro-motorsports, would (IMO) make the steering too quick in a high speed panic situation.
So if you are thinking of an aggressive lowering, you may want to talk with some one who can set you up with the proper bump steer corrector.

BTW: After the first 500 miles, when I rechecked all the fastners and alignment, etcetera, I put the car through some pretty rough, fast and windy roads, with just about every type of bump, and turn you can think of. The steering is awesome! Because of the reduced turns lock to lock, it is easy to keep both hands on the wheel, and you butt anchored to the chair. Very confidence inspiring. The down side is your turning radius is about like a mid 80s Tarus, or 90s Mitsubishi Spyder. (IMO) a good trade off.
While I have not driven a car equiped with the TCP rack, I'd imagine it to be pretty much the same. I'd also suggest keeping the large (stock size) steering wheel, to help with precision steering inputs.

Good luck which ever way you go. (again, IMO) Between these two systems, it would be hard to go wrong.

Hey while I'm typing up "War and Peace". Huge props to Opentracker on both the roller perches and the upper control arms. You can definitely tell the difference.

...and they all lived happily ever after at Laguna Seca. The end.

Scott

headgrinder · Jun 4, 2006

steeroids fix

I agree that i should not have had to do the fixs myself but for anyone who has steeroids it can be fixed. The flex is gone completly the bolts can't work loose and it actually drives quite well now I do like quick ratio.Still I would wait until steeroids fixs it themselfs before recomending them.

washMO66 · Jun 4, 2006

I just bought my 66 Coupe back and the guy put a flaming river rack on it and I can tell you that it has major issues. Feel is terrible at low speeds and once you get up to 70 mph it shakes like hell, worse decellerating. He said he talked with Flaming River and they were not a lot of help.

He had it aligned but after driving today I think the issue is in the steering. I'm thinking about yanking it out...

Help>>

LMan · Jun 5, 2006

FR has a real turkey there, and its not been significantly improved since its 'debut', from all accounts.

I'd avoid FR like anthrax.

Edbert · Jun 5, 2006

I'm sure most would agree with you LMan, sad part is they were the number one blueprinter of the old steering boxes. I hate seeing a company's reputation being tarnished so, but of course you could argue they deserve it for releasing such an inferior product, and definitely for continuing to market it so heavilly.

washMO66 · Jun 5, 2006

I just want my car not to shake at high speeds, I'll deal with the lousy feel of it for now...

The car has been aligned and feels fine at low speeds but I won't take it to the track until I get it fixed, not sure what to do. I have to get under it and see what is up... Feels like there is major play at speed.

bnickel · Jun 5, 2006

washMO66 said:
I just want my car not to shake at high speeds, I'll deal with the lousy feel of it for now...

The car has been aligned and feels fine at low speeds but I won't take it to the track until I get it fixed, not sure what to do. I have to get under it and see what is up... Feels like there is major play at speed.

about the only way to fix it is to ditch the FR rack i'm afraid. the biggest problem with it is the bumpsteer for this unit is horrible and from everything i've read about it it is not correctable oe even close to correctable. my advice is to sell that sucker on ebay and hopefully you'll be able to make enough to swap in a stock manual steering system.

washMO66 · Jun 5, 2006

Can I keep the column? I'll call FR and see what I can do as it relates to putting it back to stock.

bnickel · Jun 5, 2006

washMO66 said:
Can I keep the column? I'll call FR and see what I can do as it relates to putting it back to stock.

should be able to although you may have to fab a way to to connect it to the gear box, should be easy enough though.

70vert · Jun 6, 2006

Hey Headgrinder, maybe we should meet up!

headgrinder said:
I have finally gotten all my problems with steeroids rack fixed.

If interested I can email them.

Now it works like it should Randy at steeroids was lots of help and very interesed in getting rack install right.

Thanks for posting this. I have the Steeroids rack and I have been running it "as is" for about a year now with no problems, but I can see the issues and would love to incorporate your mods.

And hey, cut us guys who chose Steeroids some slack - back up about a year and a half, year and nine months, and it was very hard to get a TCP rack and it was unclear after Chassisworks bought them when and if they would be available. And I don't remember people saying clearly "stay away from Steeroids"

I'm over in Oakland, I'd love to see those pics (PM sent) but even better, maybe we could meet up and talk mods - check out my sig.

Stangninjak · Jun 6, 2006

Hmm good thread. Been thinking about getting randalls rack..this seals it.

Protowrxs · Jun 6, 2006

Stangninjak said:
Hmm good thread. Been thinking about getting randalls rack..this seals it.

Exactly my thoughts... It looks like the Randalls is mounted much further forward as well for long tube headers plus it sounds like it works with other PS pumps possibely without issues. It will be double nice to not only have R&P but power steering back as well.

-Stephen

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