Looking for some help here from people with long memories and histories with TR3s I bought my 3 as a largely completed restoration, well I say largely completed, I'd probably correct that now based on recent experiences to "partially completed". The PO did a steering rack conversion, approximately back in but never tested it. Well no visible stop or restriction outside of the rack, its like the pinion simply comes to the end of the rack before the wheels are fully turned in that direction.
As if the pinion was inserted into the rack when the rack wasnt centered, it could well be as simple as that and perhaps one can just withdraw the pinion, centre the rack and then re insert it, I haven't tried yet and was just hoping that someone might advise me if thats feasible or not. I did read somewhere that back in the day there was a batch of steering rack conversions that did have this problem or one like it, the kit was purchased back then from the TR Shop not that they made the kit of course.
Sounds as if you need to remove the lower knuckle from the rack, centre the rack and then refit the knuckle. A lot rack conversions dont give quite as much from lock to lock as original anyway. Thanks for the reply Stuart.
So am I interpretting this correctly, it should be possible to remove the pinion pinion and lower knuckle all one piece?
As if the pinion was inserted into the rack when the rack wasnt centered, it could well be as simple as that and perhaps one can just withdraw the pinion, centre the rack and then re insert it,. Now maybe I am being a bit thick here quiet at the back! Isn't this down to the position of the whole housing in the chassis? The position of the pinion is fixed by the housing so that will achieve nothing more than would turning the steering wheel a bit. Disengaging the pinion and centreing the internal rack alone, without adjusting the track-rods, will just move the wheels from the straight ahead position, so as soon as you straighten up it will be back where it was before and the steering wheel will be misaligned.
