Steering Rack Bellows Replacement (nearside)

[Colin]

Hi All.

Been putting this job off for a while  . . . new tie rod end and nearside steering rack bellows.

Very easy dismantle. Tugged removal of old bellows with small end split.

I fear of splitting the inner end of the new bellows, how can I feed the opening over the articulated knuckle joint to the location of where I can electrical tie it off?

Please see photo.

All suggestions welcome.

Best,

Colin

[NonMember]

I'm sure there was a thread on here really quite recently that included instructions for making a special tool out of a bird seed tub lid.

Just a little further down this page is the design, some description of its use on the page before

[Pete Lewis]

this is where the bellows should have a bigger diameter end for the size of tube 

try  maternity ward   ???

 

[Colin]

Thanks All.

Going to try the coke can method! 

Might have to lose the engine screen panel for better access, too.

Best,

C.

 

[Colin]

Dear All,

Ditched the coke can idea. Couldn't find a suitably rigid plstic bottle once its screw top was cut off for the 40mm clearance it needed.

Simply held the gaiter inside neck against the knuckle joint and gently levered the top up and over onto the joint with a short flat blade screwdriver.

Then pushed over into position with suitable jubilee waiting.

Best, Colin.

[Colin]

That said, replacement tie rod did not arrive with same diameter screw thread as old unit and locking nut was therefore larger. Manual shows washer to be used. New rod did not include said washer.

Critical??

Best,

C.

[Paulfc]

Thought I’d share my experience of replacing my near side gaiter - a job I’d never done before. Before tackling it I took time to read up on how to do it, looked at a few YouTube videos and sought the guidance of the Forum. All referenced the “struggle” to pass the small aperture leading edge “tube” over the inner/ outer steering arm knuckle joint. One YouTube video even had a caption along the lines of, “and now for the struggle” when it came to that part of the video showing how to do it on a TR5. After some thought my solution was to invert the  “tube” (so I pushed it into the gaiter body), smear grease on the knuckle and then push the gaiter over it while twisting it clockwise. Once over I used a 100+ year old button hook from my - miscellaneous/might come in useful one day - tool collection (I guess any suitable hooky thing will do) and carefully inserted it into the gaiter, gently extracted the “tube” and slid it home. In all it took 90 seconds - and I didn’t swear once! 
However, the hose clips supplied as part of the renewal kit were absolute trash and just twisted out of shape as I tightened them.

 

[Colin]

Hi Paul,

There were numerous ideas about using an intermediary tube that fitted in the narrow gaitor neck and passed over the rack knuckle. I had nothing handy and making one from a coke bottle didn't work for me (nor any other plartic bottle necks, sadly). I ended up doing it what I thought was the 'hard way', but found it wasn't that bad in the end! Not too much of a struggle actually. Used some decent jubilee clips. Robert's your Uncle. Glad your job was successful, too. 😊