Western power steering in Bristol will fit a new rack to the missus' Ford Ka for =A3100 labour. (=A3270 total).
On the face of it climbing under a car to save =A3100 seems a bit pointless but I've never used my ball joint seperator so fancy doing it myself.
Is the job a PITA? What are the tricky bits? Any tips?
If it's not *reasonably* straightforward I'll probably get it done 'cos tracking will be =A320+ and I can't really do that at home.
Discuss.
Supplimentary questions:
What's access like? Is it possible to fit a non PAS rack with the original column?
I've not done a Ka but a Fiesta needs the subframe dropping and then properly realigning. The tool for doing such a thing is only 20odd quid but if you're only going to be doing it once it might not be worth it.
Fitting a manual rack will probably be all sorts of aggro and with modern camber/castor set-ups the steering weight will be quite high.
John
Just done ours (1999 model) a few weeks ago. Its got aircon as well and it was an absolute PITA. Access is from underneath only and extremely limited and it took me a while ( I am slow) to work out that you disconnect the power steering pipes in the nearside wheel arch not at the rack and then thread the whole lot with rubber pipes out of the driver's side. I improvised the special tool you need to disconnect the power steering return pipe special connector. With aircon fitted I think its impossible to get a spanner on the pipes where they join to the rack.
I had to loosen the lower front suspension support bracket on the drivers side to get the rack out and the Haynes manual didn't mention any alignment issues that I noticed and it seemed to only be capable of going back in one place.
Saved several hundred on Ford fitted prices (rack 400 fitting 200). I used a recon non-Ford rack, but I wouldn't do it again if I could get the price you have been offered locally.
Ball joint separation was the easiest bit and over in a few seconds! I wouldn't look forward to it too much. It didn't compensate for all the time on my back.
Hope that helps.
JohnB
John that is *exactly* the kind of response I was looking for.
Sound advice, loads of detail. Many thanks.
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