How to remove the steering rack from a 355

That's all for now. I expect I'll have the rack back in a week or two, and then will have to find a good weekend to put it back in. But hey, assembly is just the reverse of removal right?

Since I did this in my business partner's garage (I live in a condo), and my car is now occupying the space where his TR6 lives, I had to take his TR6 home to San Francisco for a few weeks. I had a great drive home.

 

Reference material.

Mitchell's post regarding rack removal can be found in the following thread (post#13). If anyone has other tips or related threads, feel free to post them here too.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/348-355/378512-348-rack-bushing-replacement.html

 

This is a very, very useful thread on an aspect of the 355 rarely covered. Thanks and nice work!

 

I know I did another post on this with a little more information. So I found it and post it here with a few hints for the installation part of the job.

It is a terrible job. Unless you are very handy, it is a job best done by someone else.

0. Drain AC refrigerant, and posibly coolant (coolant may be optional)
1. Remove all the trunk liner, remove the 2 access plates
2. Remove wheels, remove tie rod ends
3. Remove bottom liner from under the car, disconnect various steering hoses, heater hoses, and AC hoses under the rack.
4. Remove suspension cross bar
5. From inside trunk, remove bolts/nuts clamping the rack to the body.
6. From inside the car, remove the cover sitting over the rack access hole, remove the universal joint clamping nut/bolt, slide univeral joint away from rack.
7. From inside the car, remove 2 input/output hoses (take very special note and be very careful when putting them back) Buy a dozen spare copper seals because you will lose a bunch of them in the installing process, trust me on this one.
8. Now that the whole rack is loose, it slides left / right, tilt it so left side can drop below the car, and out the bottom. This step is likely a 2 man job and requires removal of many fluid lines to give the rack clearance.

The installation is also a 2 man job. The sequence is:

Fit the rack back in loosely
Install the oil lines, making sure they fit exactly as before with all the bends and all the connections in the right places top and bottom. This is when you will need the extra copper crush washers
Install the cover plate inside the car (or it will not fit any other time)
Fit the clamps from inside the trunk and tighten them (a hard job trying to line up the clamp, the rubber spacers, the bolts) use plenty of F words.
Reinstall the cross bar, the hoses, access plates, trunk liner.
Reinstall tie rod ends, drop links, tires.
Refill fluids, realign suspension.

Sheety and messy job, good luck. You will wish that the designer had made the trunk 1/2 inch smaller and give the access space 1/2 larger to fit the steering rack. If you have a car lift, this job is easier.

 

Thanks for posting Mitchell! Very useful stuff. I would have only bought two copper washers for each bolt. I'll be sure to get a stack of them for installation. I'll also make sure my friend is around to help when it's time for the rack to go back in. I was guessing that aligning the rack-brackets would not be fun at all.

One data point: I was able to remove the rack as a one-man operation, but I can see where installation will certainly require two people!

I don't think I would have been brave enough to dig in, without you having led the way.

This really is a tough job. I wrench on motorcycles for a living, and still found this tedious and challenging. And my entire upper body hurts now, the day after.

 

Wow!! Fantastic thread! As much as I love working on my car, I hope I never need to do this ;-)

Thank you for this thread - awesome job Paul!

 

Wow...you are a DIY master...that's a way tougher job than most would attempt. I ended up forking over $1400 to my dealer for the removal/replacement, and I sent mine to Atlantic for the rebuild.

Where are you sending yours?

 

$1,400 for R&R is a good deal for this much work!

Based on all of the good things I've heard, I'm planning to ship mine to Atlantic too.

 

Yes...after mentally going through what you just did prior to my service, I knew there was no way I'd have the time. But what you're doing here proves to me what I've always felt, and that is that big jobs like these CAN be done at home, as long as you are patient and take your time. Bravo.

Atlantic is very good, and very fast/responsive. Make sure you tell them that you do not want your rack painted. They will ask you this, but this way you'll be sure to point it out in the off chance that they don't.

 

Excellent post not oftain done from what I hear but much easier with this info thanks

 

Thanks for the heads up!

 

VERY nice thread!

Thanks for sharing.

 

Great job Paul. Excellent write up.

 

I'll be shipping mine to Atlantic also. They quoted me around $500 for the rebuild.

 

Thanks guys.

Just shipped mine off to Atlantic today.

Oh. One important thing I forgot to mention: It's a good idea to keep the AC lines sealed up or at least wrapped tightly in plastic wrap at the ends. Or you could even re-assemble the lines, to prepare the car for the wait, while the rack is touring the country via UPS. Apparently the oil used in AC systems loves to soak up water, aaaand the dryer component (just under $300 if you get the one in the yellow box) will lose it's ability to dry if it's left open. Just in case, I've ordered a new dryer. It's an aftermarket one. About $60 delivered. I'll post a link to it, once it's proven to be a good fit and to work well. It's from a company called Polar Bear Inc.

Now I need to track down some high-quality green o-rings of exactly the right size for the parts of the AC system that have been opened.

 

Any AC shop will have those for cheap.

 

The rack is back. Good thing I have all next week off and no Christmas plans. I'm going to vacuum and charge the AC system myself too. (you can see the vacuum pump in the background of one of the photos).
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I re-installed the rack today. My camera's battery was dead, so I just have a couple iPhone shots and some tips.

It turns out that the studs that hold the sway bar in place can be tilted and removed. I had put rags over them during the removal. Here's a photo of one being removed. Every bit of extra space you can get, helps.
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To re-install the rack, insert it from below the car toward the passenger side. Once it's about as far to the right as it will go, the rack will clear the brake/clutch lines and can be slid into place on the driver's side.

Take two long zip ties, and insert one into the other and then poke them down through the empty grommets for the coolant/AC hoses.
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Then go back under the car, and connect the other ends around the rack. Then cinch it up, until it's even with the mounting points. This will free up your hands for working the mounting brackets into place.

Not much to look at, but the zip tie is the white stripe around the rack. Obviously, this gets snipped once the rack is bolted into place.
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It turns out that the mystery holes (the ones with rubber plugs in them in the corner of the trunk) have a purpose. When you're under the car you can stick your arms through them to reach the upper bolt for the steering rack mounting brackets.

In the second photo, you can just see my (long sleeved) right arm poking through the oblong hole in the corner of the trunk, and my (black gloved) finger poking back through and touching the bracket.
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Some of the bits and pieces are directional, so look closely for arrows.
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When bolting the power steering lines to the rack again, you must do the larger one first (19mm head). If you do the small one (17mm head) first, it's impossible to get a wrench on the larger one.

Start by attaching the larger hose under the car (this is the reference photo from when they were all connected, but it's the left-most hose at the top of the screen). Then feed the other end up toward the footwell. Attaching the large hose at the bottom will hold the hose in place while you connect the banjo bolt at the top.

Once the larger banjo bolt is fully tightened down (you won't get another chance, once the small hose is in place), you can install the smaller tube. This one is small enough to hold in place and slide the banjo bolt through, without attaching the lower end first. (though that would probably work too).
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Once the power steering lines were all connected, I topped up the power steering fluid. Next I re-installed the heater hoses and topped up the coolant. Then I re-connected the air-conditioning lines, using new o-rings. AC systems use special "HNBR" o-rings. They tend to be green, but not all green o-rings are HNBR. Apparently this type of o-ring is resistant to the PAG oil in the AC system.

That's as far as I got today. In a few days, when I have time again, I'll use a vacuum pump to evacuate the AC system, and then re-charge it. Oh, and I'll install a new dryer. (since the AC system was open for a while, and it kills the desiccant.)

Of course, I'll properly sort out the coolant level and power steering level along the way.

 

Finally got it all back together. Including removal, re-installation, and all of the peripheral stuff, I spent four days wrenching (about 24 hours total), and about 15 more hours researching and ordering various parts and tools.

It could have been done in about half the time, but I tend to get caught up in trying to make things "perfect". You'd be amazed how much time I spend cleaning parts I hope to never see again.

The AC has been evacuated and re-charged. Power steering fluid, drained a second time, and re-filled. I flushed the cooling system with distilled water four times, and finally filled with 50/50 distilled water and Mercedes coolant.

Doing the alignment was easier than I thought. The workshop manual spec's out the measurements. A metric tape measure and a laser-level made quick work of it.

I drove about 40 freeway-miles home tonight, and then topped up the fluids. Feels great.

If I had to do it all over again, I'm not sure I would have gone DIY. I might feel better about my decision to go it alone once the soreness wears off.
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