Steering Box refurbished and refitted

At the end of April, I collected the rebuilt steering box from Holman Engineering in Surrey, a family owned small business nestled between houses on a residential road. The rebuild kit I bought in January for a Mk1 Cortina unfortunately wasn’t quite right, the ball bearing races were too small, but I assumed the rest of the kit that included the gaskets and sector shaft bush were all ok. Jeff (Holman Engineering) sourced the correct size ball bearings with bearing races and the rest of the build was apparently straight forward.

Steering Box rebuild kit
Steering Box rebuild kit (MK1 Cortina) – note bearings and cups too small for Corsair application

It only took a couple hours of an afternoon over the Bank Holiday weekend to re-install, though it was a bit heavy and awkward to get the steering shaft up into the interior without the column bracketry catching on nearly every edge and surface. I made the mistake of tightening the bolts to the body/chassis too soon that it left me no wiggle room to attach the bolts to the pedal supports and dashboard. A bit of back tracking loosening bolts, I could wiggle the steering shaft into place and get the other securing bolts under the dash lined up and fitted. I just had to reconnect the steering drop arm and drag link, refit the steering column bits and the job was done.

I had to wait before I could take the car out for a test drive as I needed to get some SAE 80EP (AGL-4) oil for the steering box, but my local motor factor couldn’t source the specific grade I needed. In the end I used Amazon to buy 2 litres so I can use it on the gear box later, as well. A week later when the weather had improved (or had stayed dry long enough) I took the car for a test drive and to serve as a trip to get some more fuel. It felt so much more positive and responsive to my input and was very smooth to turn and drive. Coupled with the new shock absorbers all round the Corsair is much nicer to drive, just a minor misfire to check which could be a failed spark plug as before.

I also took the opportunity to fit a replacement steering column shroud I had bought a while ago, as I had cracked and glued back together my original shroud a few years ago. However, I was missing two bolts, so I had a rummage in my spare bolt jars and found some metric bolts that would fit if cut down and re-cut with a new thread. It was was one of those things that bugged me for a while and now I have 4 bolts to secure the two halves of the steering column shroud.

Steering Box

Mid March and I had time to tackle the steering box removal. I decided to keep the Corsair in it’s garage rather than move it to the other garage/work shop to work on. All I had to do was turn it around facing outwards and then use the passenger door to get in and out of the car.

I took my time starting inside the car, first by removing the parcel shelf before taking off the steering wheel, steering column shroud and indicator stalk, column bolts to the dashboard and a bolt to the pedal assembly. With the car on axle stands, I then worked under the front to separate the steering arm from the drag link and then I progressed to removing the 3 main bolts holding the box to the inner wing. It was all going well and took me about an hour to get as far as the steering box being disconnected and ready to come out.

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Front Wheel Alignment

I had the front wheels laser aligned by 5 Square Motors as it is where I have taken the Corsair for the MOTs, so I was seeking continuity. Unfortunately I couldn’t have the chap who did the MOTs as another mechanic was lined up for the job. On the day the wheels were aligned OK, I presume, but when I asked for a check of the bolts on the TCAs and other suspension parts the mechanic tasked with the job claimed he found a couple of loose bolts and decided he didn’t want to sign off the job as safe, as it was work he hadn’t done. It kind of defeated the object of asking the garage to check as I couldn’t do the final tightening of bolts with the wheels on the ground. I’ll now have to do it with the car up on ramps, just hoping the angle of the car on the ramps won’t interfere with a proper tightening of the bolts.

Late one Friday afternoon and I got the Corsair up on the car ramps. I rechecked all the bolts to the TCAs, steering ball joints and top mounts, none were loose. I did add washers to the ball joint ends just for peace of mind after ‘being advised’ by the mechanic that didn’t want to check my work. I later took the Corsair for a decent drive around the locale and the improved feel of the steering was evident as was the general ride. No longer did the car rattle and shake over bumps and ruts in the road. The new dampers had improved the ride massively, so I would call that a result.

Front Suspension Overhaul – Part 5

A little while later: With the delay, due to the faulty new strut stopping progress, it gave me time to reflect on the work done so far and to be completed. Upon closer inspection of the assembled nearside strut, it was evident the top nut needed tightening quite a lot more as my current tools couldn’t reach into the top mount’s recess. I had to buy a 24mm swan necked ring spanner (Ebay) to finish the job properly. Fitting the track control arms with new inner arm rubbers and ARB poly bushes into the front cross member was initially a tough job. However, with a bit of lubrication and some persuasion with my leather faced mallet got them both in position. After I had reinstalled the nearside strut which was reasonably straight forward, I set about putting the brake caliper on. Here was when I noticed the bellows were split and had got mangled up when I inserted the brake pads in September last year.

Ford Corsair offside TCA with new bushes
Ford Corsair offside TCA with a lick of paint and new bushes.
Brake calipers with damaged bellows
Brake calipers with damaged bellows

So, I had the saga of replacing the bellows. Luckily, I had a new spare set I had bought several years ago, but I wasn’t sure how to make them fit, as they seemed too large to fit in the groove of the caliper piston hole. In my haste and doubts, I contacted BCA Automotive to find out where they got the bellows from when they rebuilt the calipers last year. Later, I was on the internet to order two front caliper seal kits from Mev Spares and within a couple of days I had the new set, only to find they were the exact part number as my original spares! One evening in the week, with a renewed approach I tried again to fit the seal into the groove of the caliper and this time they all went in. It was down to a technique of gentle but firm pressure and faith that the rubber would pop into the groove. Having acquired a mini air compressor in the summer (during the carport conversion to garage) I found it invaluable in popping out the caliper pistons and blowing excess fluid in my face.

Ford Corsair P16 caliper replacement bellows fitting
Ford Corsair P16 caliper with replacement bellows being fitted

At the same time as ordering the replacement caliper seals, that I didn’t need, I also ordered a new Meyle top strut mount from a Ebay seller hoping this one would be good to go. By the weekend (12/13th Sept) the part had arrived and I was ready to finish the offside strut assembly, front anti roll bar, attach the brakes and connect them up.

Volvo strut top
Volvo strut top with new mounting holes to be drilled
Ford Corsair strut top (Volvo 240)
Ford Corsair strut top (Volvo 240) fits neatly in existing location and plastic dust cap fits too.

Fitting the anti roll bar with new poly bushes was a more awkward job than expected as I had to re-tap a bolt hole that had become a bit cross threaded and use the jack to help align and manoeuvre the anti roll bar into place.

Ford Corsair offside strut with anti roll bar
Off side front strut and anti rolled bar ready for fitting.

So in nutshell, the new parts I ordered for the front strut refurbishment were:

  • Meyle (Volvo 240) damper Part No. 526 614 0001
  • Meyle (Volvo 240) strut top mount Part No. 514 127 0001
  • Amsteer steering ball joint kit Part No. (as at Sept 2020, no stock left)
  • Inner TCA original (Ford tooling) quality rubber bush from Corsair Enthusiasts Facebook member
  • Superflex poly bushes for TCA to anti roll bar (SF0233KSS) and anti roll bar mounts (SF2045/19)

During the strut refurbishment, I needed to insert 2 large washers to take up the excess space of the Volvo 240 damper in the strut tube, and conveniently, the damper locking nut was the same thread as on the strut. I had to relocate the mounting studs on the Volvo 240 strut top mount to match the holes on the Corsair inner wing. I used two good condition springs obtained from a Corsair Club member on Facebook.

Wobbly Steering Column – Sorted

The fuel issue is still unsolved though I have another idea to try out, but got distracted with a quest to sort the wobbly steering shaft in the steering column. Looking at the manuals, the column was missing a felt bush, backed by Peter from AJ Restorations also saying something about a felt bush being required. So a search around the internet and I saw on the MK1 Cortina site the felt bush, a small rhombus shaped scrap of fabric about 6 x 4 cm (approx 3×2 inches). The problem being, minimum orders were £10 and this part was only £4 and I think my membership had lapsed anyway. So looking around Ebay I saw a very similar felt bush for the MGB steering column, so for about £7.50 including postage, I had placed my order.

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Steering in the right direction

A successful and productive day sorting out a few minor niggles (Sunday 1st May). First the blowing exhaust was sorted out, one of the joins on the left hand down pipe hadn’t completely slid in. Then the return fuel line was re-installed, luckily I had kept it along with the old fuel delivery line, though I had to dig it out from a shelving collapse in the carport. It took a while to wiggle it all in to place which necessitated the prop shaft being dropped down again, the hand brake cable being detached and trim off the rusted and damaged pipe ends.

Fuel sender unit all plumbed in properly with fuel return now re-installed.
Fuel sender unit all plumbed in properly with fuel return now re-installed.

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