Quick rack

[mfp4073]

If anyone had a Pedders quick rack fitted by Monkfish ( many moons ago I know ) did they come with a poly steering rack bush as part of the package.
I have checked my receipt but there is no mention of it listed separately. I have also checked underneath the car but I can’t tell without cleaning off the old rust proofing.

[Magic919]

Ask Roger nicely and I’m sure he will know.

[mfp4073]

Magic919 said:

Ask Roger nicely and I m sure he will know.

I did think about that, but I hesitated…I didn’t want him to think I was a sad old anorak…which of course I’m not….well maybe just a little

[Magic919]

I’m sure you’re just an enthusiast, like the rest of us

[Lincsls1]

It's highly likely you have one fitted since your car has the Road Response Pack. I think that bush was part of that.

[mfp4073]

As always I’m going to have crawl under the car and clean off the rack. If the improved rack bush has been fitted it’s probably a bright red Pedders item or even blue if it’s Superpro
I’ve looked at the road response pack and can’t find anything to suggest a steering bush was fitted to my then stock rack.
It has been suggested that when I later had a quick rack fitted by monkfish they used the old bushings if they were in good condition.
The reason being the rack bush when fitted transmitted a lot of vibration through the steering column to the driver?
I’m not really sure if that’s true but think of it as a bit of a mystery
See how I keep you guys entertained!!!!

[Lincsls1]

I've got the bright red Pedders rack bush fitted, along with the QR. I can honestly say, no obvious increase in vibration noticed.
And I'm anal.

[Lincsls1]

Why are you investigating this anyway? Just interested

[mfp4073]

Lincsls1 said:

Why are you investigating this anyway? Just interested

The only thing on the front of the car that hasn’t been polybushed is the steering rack…maybe?
I polybushed the rear of the car with the exception of the rear swinging arms, they look like a real pain to do. That and there is some argument which basically says leave them alone. The consensus seems to be for a road car replace them with stock items and do not use polybushes as they can cause issues and actually fail in use?
In fact I was also looking at a Harrop diff cover until I saw the price so I just changed the oil instead.
This time I went with Motul 75w/140 as per Wavetrac recommendations. I was surprised to see how cloudy the old oil was, it had only covered 95000 miles, but had been in the diff for almost 10 years!
I might as well add I’ve just changed the engine oil with the usual Royal Purple, however they do not offer their own oil filters anymore so I ended up with a Mobil 1 long life filter instead.
Curiosity the oil was very dark and I had a small amount of grey sludge on the tip of the magnetic drain plug The oil was 17 months old and had covered only 40000 miles. Usually the oil is much lighter in colour when I change it so I will keep an eye on that in future.

[Lincsls1]

Ah, OK. Well for what it's worth, my old rack bush was absolutely fine when it came off, and like I said, no noticeably vibration increase with the new poly one. So either way, I wouldn't rush to replace it
Re: trailing arm bushes, yes, I've read conflicting information regarding fitting poly bushes. Pedders thankfully offer a 'rubber' based inner and outer bush too, that is what I would fit personally, rather than any poly offering. Poly in the droplinks, ARB, and subframe are the usually upgrade.
My trailing arm bushes look just fine, so I'll leave well alone for now.
I'm not sure I'd worry about the engine oil, I find RP oil rather dark in colour, even brand new, it shows on the dipstick really easily compared to the usual golden colour of most other brands. Just keep an eye on it.

[mfp4073]

Lincsls1 said:

Ah, OK. Well for what it's worth, my old rack bush was absolutely fine when it came off, and like I said, no noticeably vibration increase with the new poly one. So either way, I wouldn't rush to replace it
Re: trailing arm bushes, yes, I've read conflicting information regarding fitting poly bushes. Pedders thankfully offer a 'rubber' based inner and outer bush too, that is what I would fit personally, rather than any poly offering. Poly in the droplinks, ARB, and subframe are the usually upgrade.
My trailing arm bushes look just fine, so I'll leave well alone for now.
I'm not sure I'd worry about the engine oil, I find RP oil rather dark in colour, even brand new, it shows on the dipstick really easily compared to the usual golden colour of most other brands. Just keep an eye on it.

Thanks for that, as you have the steering rack bush fitted to your car and it isn’t transmitting any vibration I will keep that in mind.
As for the trailing arm bushes, like you I’m going to leave them alone for as long as they are serviceable. I really don’t fancy doing that job at all. In fact I would take the car to AAS and get Stuart to do it…assuming of course he won’t tell me to….I’m sure you guess the rest

[L2VXR]

I was advised to keep the factory trailing arm bushes for a road car by monkfish/Roger but I did have to replace them when I powdercoated everything. There a generic vauxhall part shared with calibra/cav/and others and not particularly difficult to change but you do need to drop the subframe to get the bolt out near the sill whether that be one side at a time or full removal

[mfp4073]

L2VXR said:

I was advised to keep the factory trailing arm bushes for a road car by monkfish/Roger but I did have to replace them when I powdercoated everything. There a generic vauxhall part shared with calibra/cav/and others and not particularly difficult to change but you do need to drop the subframe to get the bolt out near the sill whether that be one side at a time or full removal

Thanks for that I assumed they were Monaro / Commodore specific. Do you recall if you can change these bushings without disconnecting the hard brake lines. The hard lines are original on my car and I m pretty confident they will snap due to age if disturbed.

I did check the steering rack bush today as I hadn t refitted the metal sump guard yet.
The bushing on the rack is black in colour so not a Pedders or Superpro item.
It looked to be in perfect shape TBH, so after all the fuss I’ve made about it I ll leave it alone as I’ve got other jobs to sort out.

Edited by mfp4073 on Monday 2nd November 17:07

Edited by mfp4073 on Monday 2nd November 17:08

[L2VXR]

Fairly sure you would need to disconnect them, I stripped everything out anyway and replaced all brake lines with the stainless gto kit from sstubes.com

[L2VXR]

[mfp4073]

Thank you,
I’ve taken a screen shot of this for my “list of future parts required” which strangely enough is getting longer