Ted_7 Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 Went to Paris yesterday and on my way back, after 2 hours of freeway at constant speed, I've noticed that it was very very hard to turn the wheels to both sides. Dissapeared after a few kilometers of small roads. Today everything was fine until I take the freeway, and then, again, steering was very very heavy ! Gets better on small roads. In 60.000 kms it's the first time I have that. Any idea of what may be the cause ? Thx in advance ! Se7enly, Ted_7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomBerlin Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 Something getting hot and binding in the rack? It would be worth jacking up the front of the car while in bind-up mode to see if it's the rack or something in the wheel pivot mechanism. I'll save you the crack about checking the power steering fluid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ted_7 Posted March 17, 2003 Author Share Posted March 17, 2003 I'll save you the crack about checking the power steering fluid. That is a good one Se7enly, Ted_7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Perry Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 Ted, If you have the quick rack look in the archives. I recall a couple of people have reported the exact fault that you describe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Flatters Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 I posted one of these threads cos the exact same thing happened to me on the M25. Went to turn the wheel and almost couldn't - very scary at 70mph. I contacted Caterham and explained the problem, and although they didn't go into details, they told me to send them the rack and they would fix the problem. I sent the rack off and about a week later got it back (FOC) and the problem has never re-ocurred. I am told that it is something to do with the bush on the end of the pinion. BTW my car was a 94 de dion. Good luck. *arrowright*Harry Flatters *arrowright* AKA Steve Mell of Su77on Se7ens and Joint Surrey AO Edited by - Harry Flatters on 17 Mar 2003 09:04:01 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennie Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 If you undo the large lock nut on the rack, with a grub screw in the middle, underneath is a slide that fits on the back of the rack and controls the play between the rack and the pinion. If that part is metal that is the problem they were converted to plastic due to exactly this problem. Phone Caterham and I am sure they will send you one. To adjust the play when reassembling, screw the locknut to finger tight screw in the grub screw until there is no play then tighten the locknut this can be a bit trial and error as the grub screw goes in when the locknut is tightened. A good spanner that fits the large nut is one that removes rad fans on older cars or a adjustable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V7 SLR Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 It's a Ford viscous fan spanner, available from Halfords. I think it is 32mm, which is beyond the reach of all adjustables I could find. Interested by what you said about replacing the metal slide bush for a plastic one Len. I've heard from a couple of people who cannot appear to eliminate the play in their rack without it binding so they replaced their plastic slide bush with a bronze one which appears to afford them the micro-adjustability needed to eliminate play without it binding. I don't know how they've faired over time though. I was going to have a go at this myself over the Winter but got stuck into other projects.... I'll try next Winter. Worcs L7 club joint AO.//Membership No. 4379//Azure Blue SLR No. 0077//Se7ens List Tours Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V7 SLR Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 Damn... double clicked. Worcs L7 club joint AO.//Membership No. 4379//Azure Blue SLR No. 0077//Se7ens List Tours Edited by - V7 SLR on 17 Mar 2003 11:55:19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ted_7 Posted March 17, 2003 Author Share Posted March 17, 2003 Harry, they did that free of charge ??? Caterham can do that sometimes ???? Anyway, I live in Belgium and as my seven is my everyday car, I can't live without it for 15 days. Maybe a good plan is to send them a mail and see if they can do something in May, when I go to Stoneleigh (alread planned a visit of the factory). Maybe changing the blue rack is cheaper than the P&P costs. Meanwhile I'll avoid freeways... Thx. Se7enly, Ted_7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ted_7 Posted March 17, 2003 Author Share Posted March 17, 2003 Got an answer... Have to change it... It won't be FOC ☹️ Se7enly, Ted_7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Perry Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 I have had a bronze one made. Too soon to comment how good it is but I don't think it can be any worse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawrence_Z Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 When I last had these symptoms it turned out to be the rack binding at the nearside due to a combination of lack of lubrication, congealed gunge and swarf from the rack. The rack body really needs a bronze bush here, where it passes thru' the alloy, or at least a grease nipple to allow some lubrication to be added ocassionally. Lawrence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Perry Posted March 18, 2003 Share Posted March 18, 2003 Agreed, I looked into doing this, but concluded that I would do better to concentrate on sorting out all the play and binding issues on the offside (Right hand drive)first, as thats where the rack appears to be poorly designed as it relys on the plastic thrust block/slipper to prevent up and down and fore and aft movement. I think the plastic one is 0.5 mm too narrow and it moves in its mounting and the legs that straddle the rack should be longer. My redesigned bronze version seems so far to have fixed the problem but only miles will tell. If it still give probs, then I may add a grease nipple and a bronze bush on the near side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V7 SLR Posted March 18, 2003 Share Posted March 18, 2003 Graham, have you got any pictures of your new block? I was going to have some made up over the last winter but got too involved in engine upgrades instead. I aim to get this sorted this coming winter however, or even during a boring wet-weekend during the summer. Worcs L7 club joint AO.//Membership No. 4379//Azure Blue SLR No. 0077//Se7ens List Tours Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Perry Posted March 18, 2003 Share Posted March 18, 2003 Sadly no, I just put it straight in. It looks no different to the old one except for four things; 1/ The diameter is about 0.5 mm wider so it sits more snuggly in the retaining hole. The effect of this is that this half mm reduction in fore and aft movement is multiplied to about a 3mm reduction of movement fore and aft at the swivel joint on full left lock. 2/ The circular section that is cut out of the block that enables it to staddle the rack is now deeper on the new version as again I thought that this would help reduce the fore and aft movement of the rack bars 3/ Its made of phosphor bronze. Even though a mate did it it cost about £70 as Phosphor bronze is not cheap and it took him two hours. 4/ The block is held in place with a proper strong spiral spring rather than the bent spring washer effort that was the original. This allows more up and down travel in the rack before it is fully compressed. My rack bars at the tensioner, when moved from full left to full right lock travel up and down by nearly 3mm. The spring needs to be able to absorb this. The previous method didn't have this amount of travel in the spring so it would 'ground out' and the rack would go stiff. Mines quite an old rack and it may be that the latest ones don't have this mechanism. The reason I did all this was that I was fed up with failing scrutineering at sprints. Down here they are very thorough with this. If I removed all the movement in the rack via the adjuster the spring had no travel left at all and the steering would be impossibly tight in places. If I slackened it off to make it comfortable it would then have too much movement on the drivers side. I checked out a few modern racks to see what was wrong with Catehams design and I have just copied the other designs. You can actually remove the whole tensioning mechanism out of the rack and it would never slip anyway as the bars fit so snuggly. trouble was I could never convince the scrutineers of this. Edited by - Graham Perry on 18 Mar 2003 16:24:00 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie_pank Posted April 12, 2003 Share Posted April 12, 2003 I think I have this problem too. It's so heavy when it's playing up that the grub screw on the telescope bit near the wedge keeps working loose. So I'm going to investigate as suggested tomorrow. It's a 2001 de-dion, so it will be interesting to see if it's a plastic or a metal pinion bush. Have I got the right end of the stick on this - it IS the pinion bush we're talking about here isn't it? Is there anything else I should check? - why does it only happen when I'm on motorways and how can I make sure I'm having the same problem that the rest of you are describing? Charlie'n'Kermit The plan is: Clackett Lane@6.45 S5EVN Edited by - charlie_pank on 13 Apr 2003 11:50:23 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie_pank Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 Undid the large bolt on the rack to find a plastic bush underneath - which makes me wonder whether I really am suffering from the same problem. - trouble is, when you've been going in a straight line for a long time, maybe steering just FEELS heavy rather than actually BEING heavy. It's not exactly easy to test this kind of thing @70+ is it? I went out for a quick blat today and everything was fine, maybe it's all in my head? Charlie'n'Kermit The plan is: Clackett Lane@6.45 S5EVN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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