My Dakota has a manual steering rack - I like it and I want to keep it but the passenger-side end support bushing for the rack has clearly blown and the steering is sloppy when transitioning between left and right turns. You can grab the passenger side steering arm and force it to flop around in the receiver. Not a big problem, even less so now that I pushed some JB weld putty in the rack housing to form a hasty bushing. Recently I lucked out and found a Dakota in the local bone yard that also had a manual steering rack. It has the same blown bushing problem but I can experiment on this one without taking my truck off the road and if I manage to break the steering unit I won't be totally screwed.

The service manual says these are lifetime units that aren't meant to be serviced, only replaced. Unfortunately, they are no longer made and when searching for replacements I only found a couple of places that sell remanufactured systems at well over $300 a pop. For that kind of money I'll roll the dice on rebuilding a junkyard unit for pocket change. Here's the plan.

1) Figure out how to disassemble the junkyard unit
2) Clean everything up, inspect the unit and take measurements for the replacement bushing
3) Other than the bushing, repair whatever I broke or was already broken
4) Buy a new bushing and install it or pour a new bushing
5) Put it all back together with fresh wheel bearing grease

With that in mind, to help out the next guy, here's how to take the manual rack and pinion apart. Measurements and bushing solutions to follow.

What youre going to need will vary with the specific model year that your steering unit is coming from. This was from a 1987 so it's not really optimized for assembly in the way that the rack and pinion on my 89 clearly is. For example, on this unit the inner tie rod is staked in place and has no flats on the ball socket or rod so I had to use a hammer, chisel, and screw driver to unstake the inner tie rod and some clamping pliers to get them unscrewed. I dont know if the 88 is staked but it certainly has helper flats for a crescent wrench.

• Some kind of clamp to hold the steering unit in place
• A pin wrench (and breaker bar)
• A hammer, chisel, and screwdriver
• Clamping pliers
• 7/32 allen key or punch rod of similar size

Pull the rack


Use a 7/32 allen key as a punch and drive out that pin (if you haven't already done so when pulling the rack)


My covers use pin slots, but I didn't have one of the right size so I just drilled it out to accept the largest size pin wrench that would fit. I did need to use a breaker bar on the metal cap to get it free. Note that these caps may be staked as well (mine were) so be sure to unstake them if they are. The 89 uses a huge allen head socket, but honestly, I'd just fill it in with JB weld and drill pin holes for the pin wrench.


When you get the plastic cover off the side of the receiver, remove the drivers side bushing. Under the metal cap at the bottom there's a roller bearing at the bottom of the input shaft and it's retained by a c-clip. Don't remove the c-clip (unless the bearing is damaged and you need to replace it).


Unstake and unscrew the the passenger side inner tie rod.


Max out the driver side travel on the rack


Push the input shaft out the bottom of the receiver. You may need to wiggle the shaft and/or the rack at the same time. Now the rack should slide out of the receiver.


All disassembled and ready for inspection and cleaning. Note that in the above images the parts are already cleaned - they were crazy dirty and covered in exploded red plastic bearing material.

According to my calipers the rack shaft is 25mm (measured at 25.05mm) and the receiver is 34mm (measured at 33.91 with the aid of a bore gauge). Mcmaster-carr has a plain bronze bushing that matches these numbers for $28 before shipping. The only bushing they have would need to be cut down to size since it's too long, and I didn't see any dimensional tolerances listed so it'd kind of a crapshoot on the final bushing fitment.

I think I'm going to use some hard polystyrene shipping foam and basically make a babbit jig for pouring a bushing with some kind of firm polymer. As long as I'm careful the fitment will be near-perfect and if I have problems and need to undo everything I think plastic will be easier to remove than press fit bronze. In terms of performance, the original bushing material was plastic so that's good enough for me. I'll be making the babbit jig and pouring the bushing sometime in the next week (probably) and I'll update this post with pics from that.

 

That’s quite comprehensive. Nice work.

 

Update. I edited the measurements on the shaft and bore. I wrote the bore diameter straight up wrong (it's actually just under 34mm) and the shaft is more reliably measured at 25.05mm. Which means the McMaster-Carr doesn't have a matching bearing size. I checked a bunch of other suppliers as well and no joy there either.

So that means pouring a new bearing is the way to go and I figured out a waaaaay easier way to center the shaft in the rack for pouring that bearing. Wrap the shaft in rope so that it's slightly larger than the bore and slide it home into the receiver. The rope will average out the compression load and center the shaft in the receiver. Some tips:

There's a shoulder in the receiver bore for where the bushing is supposed to sit. Measure the length of the receiver, then measure the distance to that internal shoulder. Subtract the two and this where you want to mark the pinion shaft. Start from the gear side tooth and mark the smooth section of shaft at this point. Get some rope that's about 6mm and tape it down just under that mark. Even though it's taped down you'll want hold it down with your thumb for the first few turns. Get these as tight as you can so that the rope isn't tempted to slide up the shaft. Then wrap a few inches of the smooth shaft in rope, keeping it lightly taught. Finally take the last few wraps as tight as you can go and tap the edge down to the shaft. This is to create a ramp effect to make it easier for the shaft to slide into the receiver. Now drop the shaft in and rotate it in the direction of your wrap until the you can see the rope clear the shoulder inside the receiver. Boom that shaft will be just about perfectly centered. I busted out the caliper and couldn't measure a difference on any side between the shaft and receiver walls. Just pour the epoxy into the top and until it hits the retaining notch at the top, let it dry, and but a block of wood on top of the pinion and tap it out with a hammer.


Starting the wrap


Completing the wrap. Note that I wrapped the top of the shaft with some more electrical tape to block the epoxy from soaking into the rope and to help prevent the rope from riding up the shaft


This is with the roped-up shaft sitting inside the receiver. The arrow indicates the lower shoulder that you should be able to see


The shaft is now centered in the receiver. If youre bothered by the wall siding not being perpendicular to the shaft it's because the receiver isn't perfectly straight in my bench vise


I think I'm going to sue some 3m window weld for the bushing material. It's supposed to dry firm and be fairly resistant to automotive oils. It's used in a lot of DIY control arm bushing repair jobs on youtube and forums. I'll order the epoxy, pour it, and let you guys know how it went.

 

Not only are those parts really clean, but the background for the pictures is immaculate. I’m wondering what your background/experience is to do this kind of rebuild. This is some intricate, precise work. Not something an amateur like me could do. Great job.

 

Thanks, I'm an amatuer myself honestly. Started doing my own handiwork 5 years or so ago, after the local auto repair spot failed to fix a bad wheel bearing after three tries. I started with that and now I do pretty much all my own work (for ex, I recently swapped the engine in this truck and repinned the tumblers on the drivers side door lock) with online forums posts, YouTube videos, and the shop manual. The shop manual didn't cover this rebuild procedure and I couldnt find a forum post or youtube video so I figure I'd help out the next guy and make one. In my day job I work in software engineering and the technical writing for software docs does seem to carry over nicely to mechanical docs. I should probably also mention that I have most of a mechanical engineering degree - I dropped my senior year when I got the software gig since the pay was as good or better and the freedom to do digital nomad stuff is a real plus for me.

Update on the pour: It didn't go well. I'm going to let it cure then cut it and drive it out with a broom stick handle. I used 3m window adhesive since it's the slow drying version of window weld. I figured that the added cure time would let it flow more and allow it to conform to the mold shape. It did not in fact flow. It wasn't a temperature thing it was above 70F when I poured so it was about as low-viscosity as it's going to get without a torch to turn it into soup (and I have no idea what that would do to the final material properties). I still think 3m would work great if it were thinned out and based on some research it looks like you can thin it out with mineral spirits. Buuuuut honestly, I'm going to go back to old reliable and just use some thinned out JB weld epoxy. I think it will better match the properties of the original plastic end bushing and 10oz is the same price as the 3M stuff. It was cool to try a automotive DIY hack I've seen a lot in the past, but it turns out this wasn't the application for it.

 

Been looking for a complete rack with non available new or used. The outer bushing passenger side is gone on mine. Any one find replacements or know what material it was made out of? Instead of trying to cast one, I am going try to 3d print one out of nylon, but is there bushings on both ends and do they require retaining clips?

 

Wow... Yer right. Power steering racks are everywhere. The only manual racks I find are 'universal (don't) fit'.....

There is an thread around here somewhere, from 23 or so, on rebuilding the manual rack, have a look.

 

I thought I wrote at the end of that dead thread and hopefully bringing it back.

 

I am going to use the excuse that it was late, and I was tired, to not notice that.

 

Hello! I had a baby, my mom got sick (then better), and I bought a beater of a house in a very nice part of the world. I've been busy. But I havent forgotten about this project and I today I got a bit too excited and tackled it caveman style - which is to say with improvised tools and generally just winging it.

Steps:

1. I bought this nylon bushing/bearing McMaster car that's kinda close to the right size - https://www.mcmaster.com/6389K886/. At 25mmx 35mm and just the right length. A bit loose on the inside diameter, bit too big on the outside.
2. I dont have any of my fancy tools with me so I used a crescent wrench and some socket as improvised tools for everything. I dropped larger and larger sockets into the passenger side opening of the receiver until one just barely fit and stopped at the shoulder where the bushing is meant to rest.
3. Then I put a couple turns of tape on it until it was a snug fit inside the receiver, then took the crescent wrench tightened it up against the tape and made a mark where the crescent wrench landed. This is now my target size.
4. I did a similar thing to the inside diameter of the bushing. I found a socket that just barely fit and made it it a very mild interference fit with tape. I snugly pushed the socket into the bushing and then mounted the whole thing on drill.
5. With 80 grit sandpaper and running water from the kitchen tap (to keep heat down), I spent about 20 minutes sanding down that last millimeter of material until I had a fairly uniform 34(ish) mm outer diameter that lined up with the mark on the crescent wrench
6. Popped the bushing off it's makeshift mount and took a socket that was a bit smaller than the outer diameter of the bushing and a bit larger than the inner diameter, put it on a 1/2 extension and pressed the bushing into the receiver one hammer tap at a time until is hit the shoulder. Be sure to use lots of lube
7. If the inner bore is now too tight (from the press fit compression), you can use a pipe or other rod to tap out the bushing and make it a bit smaller in outer diameter or the old sand paper in a split dowl trick to sand the interior of the bushing and open it up a bit

Once I swap this rack in, I'll the current one out and experiment with 3d printed bushings.