J'ai décidé de publier ceci, car très peu d'informations pouvaient être trouvées en ligne lorsque j'ai essayé pour la première fois de reconstruire ma Direction assistée. J'ai également lu beaucoup de commentaires négatifs de personnes disant que la reconstruction ne remplace que les joints sur le rack et que ce n'est pas top. D'après mes observations, la Direction assistée a des rondelles à ressort et elles resteront serrées pendant qu'elles s'usent. il y a une douille qui n'est pas chargée mais la mienne semblait avoir une usure mineure. Je crois ma Direction assistée a subi des fuites de joints quadruples et des assemblages de tirants desserrés. Quoi qu'il en soit, j'avais un rack z3 bâclé qui fuyait et je n'avais pas envie de dépenser beaucoup d'argent pour un nouveau, alors j'ai décidé d'essayer de réviser le mien moi-même. Le travail est un peu pénible, mais l'imo vaut bien l'effort et l'expérience d'apprentissage.


I used the edelmann 8921 seal kit well actually 2 kits because i destroyed some seals on my first attempt.





Retirez d'abord le gros écrou en aluminium au bas de la Direction assistée








Then remove the steel nut attached to the pinion gear








Then remove the snap ring at the steering shaft input side of the pinion gear





Remove the pinion gear





the seal kit i used





With the pinion gear removed pull the upper seal off it and the bearing beneath it.





Now is the point of no return. If you don't have access to a machine shop or lathe to make the tool I used to rebuild this steering rack DONT mess with the quad seals on the pinon gear or you will get screwed like I did. I do recommend putting in the effort to getting one made though as I feel this is an essential step to a rack rebuild.







I heated the new quad seals up under a shop lamp to help them be a little more elastic and ease installation.





here is the pinion gear with new quad seals installed notice how stretched out they get making it impossible to get them back into the housing with out shearing them in half forcing you wait another week for parts and a custom tool to get your Albanian princess slayin e36 back together in the middle of summer. I threw the entire pinion assembly in the freezer in hopes of getting the quad seals to shrink back up onto the shaft



next pull the funny looking cap off the bottom of the rack notice it holds a spring loading a rack support bushing



note the oring that seals the funny looking cap



remove the oring on the spring loaded bushing clean it with some brake clean and install new oring from the kit set it aside for install later


remove circlip from the seal bulkhead end furthest away from pinion gear

give a few yanks on the rack shaft and it should pop the bulk head assembly out remove rack from tube

the bulk head

remove oring and seal from bulkhead clean thoroughly with brake clean and install new seal and oring from kit



clean bulkhead with seals

there is another seal inside the rack housing deep in there towards the pinion gear, you will need a long pry bar screw drivers and some patience to get this one out i absolutely destroyed it should take about 20 minutes and a paragraph of profanity.


way up in there


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHb2_P1Xd7g
got it



before going any further totally clean all the gunk out of the housing with brake clean and rags it would be a shame to do all this and have particles floating around in your fresh rack

ok to install the seal way the heck down there we grease up the new on and slide it on to the rack shaft up against the stop and guide it down the case then tap on the shaft with a hammer a few times and vwolla
here it is on the rack shaft


sender home!

now with the seal installed grease the heck out of the rack gears slide it back into the housing and install the greased up bulk head and retaining clip



after installing the bulk head its time to grease up and reinstall the springloaded bushing and o ring along with that funny looking cover


dont forget that o ring and spring




here is the toughest part of the whole job getting the quad seals on the pinion gear to fit back into the housing. They are tougher than getting piston rings into a cylinder, my first attempt at making a compressor involved using a redbull can and zipties no bueno! do not try that you will wreck your seals.

pinion fresh from freezure to get seals to contract as much as possible

this doesnt work dont try to be slick

here is the install tool i made i went with steel because its what we had laying around at work, can also be made out of aluminum pm me if you need one.

i would go with a bigger internal chamfer if you make one this was my first prototype and possibly a couple thousandths bigger on the bore id getting the seals to go in this tool was a pain!

the tool


how it sits in the housing


pinion gear with tool installed i recommend putting it on the pinion like this first then driving it into the head with a rubber mallet or shove it swiftly


oh that was easy





reinstall the roller bearing and new seal again grease up the bearing and seal then install the retaining clip



put that nut back on I dont know the torque spec off my head not gonna lie i just did it till it was tight with some blue loc tite for insurance.



put that aluminum cap back on



tadaaa!!! your done, I hope this helps someone out in the future someone should sticky this