J-car rack and pinion

Just talked to the engineer again. He said the rack he mentioned earlier is just a j-car rack.

He also explained that the reason we don't see racks with more travel than this is that it's not needed. The old worm gear systems (especially before power assist) needed long throws to provide the leverage necessary to turn vehicles at the time. Systems now don't require the leverage and therefore have shorter spindle arms and less total travel.

From the photo above you can see that "if you want" you could widen the window in the front of the Cavalier rack slightly to equal the mustangs original travel. Add Duane's crossmember and be done. Or just use the stock rack with no modifications and never notice the difference in turning radius.

And of course most of us have seen Randall's spindle modification to eliminate the problem.

http://www.randallsrack.com/GranadaSpindlemodification.html
 
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Hey 71vert, where are you on this rack? I finally got my wiring harness in and have been driving my stang the last two weeks and realized that I really need to get to work on my steering. I'll probable have to wait until the spring though since I'm doing student teaching this fall semester. Which means I have no free time and no money.
 
Sorry Jim, it's still sitting in the garage. Haven't had time to touch anything in the last several weeks. I'm going to put a website together soon (as soon as I can get the time) with all the data I've got so far, but it may be a couple more months.

I'll keep ya posted!
 
71vert-pga

Hi, am new to this forum, and have installed the j-car rack in my 65 fairlane, however, it only has 2 turns lock to lock and it makes the car very twitchy and scary to drive. Have found and installed a 2 1/2 turn lock to lock rack from a 96 buick skylark and it is much better. BUT what I am really looking for is a rack with 3 turns lock to lock, that would then be perfect. So, my question is, describe the car you got your rack from, and you say it has 2.9 turns? I think that may work, but need to know exactly what car to search for in the yards.

Thanks for the help.........Dave
 
Looks pretty close. It's a welded unit. Brion Gluck at Dark Horse Racing completely removed his crossmember for the TCP rack.

http://www.darkhorseracing.net/rack_and_braces.htm

I may not need to do this with the j-car rack. Brion's going to send me some more details on his installation. I'll take some more measurements after I hear from him next. I had been thinking about removing only part such as you did.

Psydwaze,

BTW, how much did you trim off and do you have any more photos?
I just installed a power rack out of a 93 Grad Prix. I did have to fab a mounting brack and cut down the outer tie rods. I made use of the existing mounting holds for the new mounting bracket. I had the Speeds rack before, but upgraded to an AOD trans. The Speed rack would not clear the Hedman headers I had on before plus the hedman headers would not clear the AOD. I wanted to stay with long tube headers. I purchased a set of long tube headers from FPA that will clear the AOD trans. There is some limit to the turning radius, but it works. The Grad Prix rack doesn't have the issue with center mounted bolts.
 
Hi, can you tell me what's tie rod arms length on spindles on your stang and grand prix, measured from about the same point?


I just installed a power rack out of a 93 Grad Prix. I did have to fab a mounting brack and cut down the outer tie rods. I made use of the existing mounting holds for the new mounting bracket. I had the Speeds rack before, but upgraded to an AOD trans. The Speed rack would not clear the Hedman headers I had on before plus the hedman headers would not clear the AOD. I wanted to stay with long tube headers. I purchased a set of long tube headers from FPA that will clear the AOD trans. There is some limit to the turning radius, but it works. The Grad Prix rack doesn't have the issue with center mounted bolts.
 
Well, it turns out I answered my own post from a few days ago. Went to the yard today and found a 2.9 turn lock/lock rack from an 86 cavalier station wagon w/2.0 motor. It has almost an inch more travel than the one I have in the car now, so that is good, that will increase my turning radius, but now I need to find a u-joint with splines as this rack has a splined shaft and my old rack(from a 96 skylark) has a 17mm DD shaft. Hopefully that wont be too hard to find.

Dave
 
I just installed a power rack out of a 93 Grad Prix. I did have to fab a mounting brack and cut down the outer tie rods. I made use of the existing mounting holds for the new mounting bracket. I had the Speeds rack before, but upgraded to an AOD trans. The Speed rack would not clear the Hedman headers I had on before plus the hedman headers would not clear the AOD. I wanted to stay with long tube headers. I purchased a set of long tube headers from FPA that will clear the AOD trans. There is some limit to the turning radius, but it works. The Grad Prix rack doesn't have the issue with center mounted bolts.

I cut the arms down and threaded them again. I used a metric thread size that was the same as the size as the outer tie rod size.
 
Well having done this conversion myself (see pic)
2387156_19_full.jpg
, I can tell you that 1) the loss in turning radius is definitely noticeable, but liveable for something that you primarily go cruisng in. Just don't try to make a U-turn in heavy traffic on a two lane road. 2) There is a noticeable "propeller" effect when changing directions, because the two center bolts are very close together, and the shaft torques over before it begins to change directions. It's a little annoying while cruising around, but under hard driving conditions, you don't even notice it. RRS stabilized it with a patented guide bar. I don't know about Randalls or Steeroids. I don't have many miles on it as my valvetrain didn't survive it's first outing at the track so I can't really say how rugged it is. However, it stood up to (almost) two 20 minute track sessions and I was running P245-17 tires, so there was a good amount of force to contend with. If I had enough time, I'm sure I could come up with a way to prevent the centerlink from torquing over, but I'm just about ready to punt and buy a TCP rack. If I was going to do it right, I would have a new shaft machined with the bolt spacing about 14" apart. It may be possible to machine new holes in the existing shaft, but I've worked on it for almost 5 years now, and I'm ready to just drive it.
 
I realize this thread is very old. But if any of you are still around, I am using a re-manufactured rack and pinion unit from a '92 cavalier. It has a 11/16" DD input shaft, but I cannot find a steering u-joint that is 11/16" DD, anywhere.

Did any of you have this issue?