• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

steering rack lubrication

Share this page

B

bullno

Freshman Member
Offline
Beginner at rebuilding healeys. Have a 66 sprite and have finished refreshing the steering rack. Have several manuals but one calls for 10 ounces of SAE 140, the other calss for Hypoid 90. Any suggestions, also there is a grease niplle for filling. Do you use this to fill first time or use the damper plug for filling, thanks Bruce
 
bullno -

Welcome to the bright side! I saw that they blasted you a tad over on the Austin Healey forum. They mean no harm, they just do not appreciate fine art! I can say that as an owner/operator of both Sprites and a larger Healey.

Jack Laird from this forum taught me about corn head grease. Seems to be the right stuff. I just removed the zerk and used a livestock syringe from Tractor Supply to "inject" the grease. Then re-installed the zerk. Seems to me I used about three syringes full to get the job done, but your mileage may vary.

BTW, I used the same syringe filled with heavy weight gear lube to fill my larger Healey steering box and Idler!!!
 
Been there! A Triumph guy for well more than 40 years my first post for my Midget was on the MG forum. Seemed only moments until I was moved here. What did I know, never even seen a Midget before I bought one early this summer, in pieces. Kind of like putting a jigsaw puzzle together with the picture down.

Thought a Spridget was a friend of Tinkerbell.
 
If you disassemble the grease gun( remove the plunger) You can pump 140 or 90 thru it. Thats what I do. I'm familiar with JD corn head grease and don't really think it will flow to where it needs to go. My spridget's get a few strokes with the wheel turned to the right then a few with the wheel to the left. At least once a year. I have an old gun that I use just for the racks.
KA.
 
I should research before I ask but I've never touched this on my MK1 Midget. There's no zerk, there's a nut, right? Remove and somehow get something in there?
 
(A question in a similar vein to jvandyke's above: is this rack-greasing business also applicable to 1500s? Since I have Nigel's engine out, I have temporary and unparalleled access to that nut.)
 
bthompson said:
(A question in a similar vein to jvandyke's above: is this rack-greasing business also applicable to 1500s? Since I have Nigel's engine out, I have temporary and unparalleled access to that nut.)
Click to expand...

No - When I did Ms Triss, I disassembled everything and greased everything, especially the rack and pinion, but, it's not the same as the process described above. Amond other things, it's just regular grease smeared in.
 
For Jvandyke: The Mk 1 midget should have a zerk. Its located on the end opposite the steering shaft on the engine side of the rack. 90 degree zerk. The steering racks did'nt change until the 70's I believe.
KA
 
Back
Top