Rack & Pinion Steering in an Early 5

I went out to our shop @ lunch to pick up a couple of ladders and spied a nice Orange CJ5 parked out back. I headed towards it and noticed the V6 badges about 50 yards away. Upon closer inspection I realized it had a SB350 in it, and an automatic transmission, but what really caught my eye was the rack and pinion steering.

I talked to the owner (our shop foreman...Jason) and he said he'd gotten it out of a Datsun pickup. Not sure if Datsun is now Mazda but anyway...bout all he did was to fabricate a bracket that hung down from the front crossmember to bolt it to. It was a straight shot to each knuckle from there. It looked pretty good...first time I've seen or heard of R&P on an early 5.

Not sure how readily accessible these R&P's would be either.


What y'all think?

Oh and it's for sale....$4,500.00

 

FYI Datsun is Nissan!
I'd have to see it John as putting rack and pinion on a straight axle is doable its not that simple and is really complicated, rack and pinion is on alot of 4x4's all IFS sytems where the axle stays stationary.

 

Pics John somebody here may want to copy it. I've heard of folks doing this but never have seen pictures or on in person. Wonder how sturdy it would be?

 

This didn't look complicated @ all. Now granted, the plate that he made to hold it looked pretty big but once it's bolted to the crossmember basically the R&P just bolts to that plate and each end connected right to the knuckles.

Now bear in mind, I probably aint the best person to judge it, but it looked fine to me. Sort of like what my brother's running on his race car.

I don't know why it would be better than saginaw, but it seems like it would cut down on the number of tie rods thus cutting down on the number of TREs thus cutting down on some of the slop in the steering.

He did say that it wandered a little bit at high speeds, but I'd think if it was doable, then maybe he just didn't do a very good job of it. I'll try to steel a pic or two for y'all...it might take a while.

 

Didn't ummm whats his name... Dauntless have R&P on his JEEP when he got it?

 

Erik, I think your right Jeff. He did say something bout that.

 

The probelm with rack & pinion is that it has to be mounted to the front axle to work right, then attaching the steering shaft to an axle that moves around with geometry that changes with the road and suspension flex creates a ton of problems including hitting the oil pan with the enclosed rack. I have seen a picture of 1 buggy done this way posted here several years back, never seen it on a jeep.

 

yep thats it. I remember the R&P was on the axle.

 

This one's not mounted to the axle it's mounted to a plate/frame that's mounted to the front crossmember. At least that's what I thought I was looking at. Dang, now I'm confused.

Before I waste time taking pics...are there any advantages to the R&P steering over saginaw? I mean would it be preferrable? or is it just a different system...maybe even less desireable than saginaw.

 

You won't find recirculating ball (Saginaw) on a sports or race car, they are very fast steering usually and have way better road feel than a saginaw. Dodge uses it on almost everything anymore except 4x4's, My Dakota steers very fast and has very firm positive steering. Most new cars in the last 10 years have it. On a 4x4 there would be no real advantage to my knowledge.

 

sounds like a recipe for constant toe changes and broken thumbs to me.

JB

 

Thats what I was thinking/\.

I guess if it was a street jeep it might work ok. You'd have to get the rack level with the tie rods though and that would make it low. Besides, how strong are those racks. They allways seemed wimpy to me, ok for a car, not for wheelin.

Kevo