Captain Obvious

I was going to suggest that about the bulge on the inside. I was wondering if you were just creating a dent by pounding with the drift punch. Band saw! Band saw! Band saw!

All the other years* are jealous in every way except collector value. I would drink that beer with pride, and the offer is the same from me at this end of the country!! I love my noise reducing weatherstrip along the top edge of my window trim!! * Except 78 which is basically identical with a few electrical differences. Haha!!

Thanks for the work to satisfy the OCD. I've got some questions... So, the gear box portion of the early steering racks are cast aluminum? I don't know when they changed it (suspect 74?), but by the time they got to 77, they were cast iron, not aluminum. Also, were there holes drilled all the way through the tube into the interior? Or were they blind drilled? Or maybe no drilling at all? It would be difficult to align pre-drilled holes in those two parts... If those are in pins pressed in, I would think they would assemble first and then drill. As for getting things back to where they started.... I agree with the suggestion about pushing them all the way through and starting over. If it took non-trivial hammer pounding to get the thing to protrude that much into the interior, I think you're going to have a very hard time getting in there and pushing it back out of the way again. I don't think using a tapered mandrel is going to work because of the geometry and the fact that the ID of the bushings is the smallest dimension. Man, I'm surprised you took a hammer to a unit you intend to use again... Brave man!

Nice progress. Make sure you lube the crap out of the spindle pins and bushings before you put it back together. Last thing you want is to have to deal with the immovable spindle pin problem in the future!

77's rule. Woot!

My check valve holds sometimes and other times it doesn't. And I do notice a difference in starting times. So that could be what's getting you too. Get into the habit of checking the fuel pressure gauge before you try to start it and see if you've got a correlation there.

Yeah, I was gonna say... The paint scheme looks great, but those bushings still look like they are trouble. Here's to hoping the new bushings are a better fit. And don't forget to address that big gap on the end by the steering box. It won't get any better if you try to install it the way you have it. I'm not sure if all the mfgrs have the same sharp internal corner or not.

I don't feel tardy.

My kids think the same thing about me.

Haha!!! I'm guessing he recently saw snow for the first (and maybe only) time in his life? How'd that go? Make him all rowdy?

Nice! Sounds like you've seen some good classic DLR! Now just hope he doesn't sprain anything on stage!

As Zed Head already mentioned, the (normal) injectors won't fire because the ECU won't see any ignition cycles. However (seems there's always a however, doesn't it?)... If the engine is cold enough, the cold start injector will fire using the wire off the starter technique. Depends on how cold the thermotime switch is. The AFM manual movement doesn't have that drawback. So if you're used to just moving the AFM vane a little bit with the cover off, then using that method is just fine. One more thing though... All that said, if you have a fuel pressure gauge installed already, you should already know if you've got pressure in the rail even after sitting overnight. Just look at the gauge.

First thing I would check is to see if your fuel pump check valve leaks a little and is allowing the fuel pressure to drop off overnight. If you don't want to go through the hassle of installing a fuel pressure gauge, you can get an idea if that's what's going on simply by pressurizing the fuel system before you try to start the car. On those mornings when the problem "would normally occur", pull the starter solenoid wire off and turn the key to START to get the fuel pump to run without engaging the starter. Then after a couple seconds of that, put the wire back on and then try to start the engine normally. If it starts instantly, then that's probably what's happening. If it still takes just as long to start even after making sure there is fuel pressure, then maybe there's an issue somewhere else. I've removed my cold start injector, so mine takes a couple cranks to start because of that. I'm OK with the delay as a trade off for fewer leak locations and simplicity.

I don't know what the input resistance is looking into the CTS circuit on the ECU. If yours is working correctly, I'm gonna say it's about 1.8K Ohms.

Good. If anyone has a dead rack they would like to donate to science, let me know, and I'll put it on the cadaver table for some exploratory surgery!

Haha! Fuel on the mind?

Haha!! So no Sammy love, huh? I can listen to all of it, but I agree... The best stuff is the early DLR stuff.

Funky! Maybe it would be prudent to make sure the two bronze bushings on the ends of the housing are still in-line? Should be pretty easy to check... Slide the rack in and make sure it goes all the way through without any binding? I'd love to cross section one of those. But the only one I have is on my car.

The readings (that I understand) look perfect. It's a 1K Ohm potentiometer, so you should see zero at one extreme and about 1K Ohms at the other. Those look great. Your CTS cold sensor indicates about 60F, and your CTS hot sensor indicates about 180F, so (assuming it was about 60F in Ventura County at that time) those look great too. The only thing I'm not sure about is the 1.82K Ohms your getting on that other reading... What do you mean with "CTS ECU harness"?

Van Hagar.

Well that's probably not good. I had suggested they were epoxy, but I should have been a little more specific. They are plastic, but I don't know if they are thermoplastic, or thermoset. Sounds like they are thermoplastic... So how much goop came out? Just tiny dots like what would fill the holes, or once it turned runny, did a large amount come running out of the holes? Like it was melting out of an internal cavity of some kind? Pics or it didn't happen.

We talked a little bit about those white plastic nubbins a little bit early on in this thread. My theory is that they have something to do with the fitting and alignment of the two major components of the rack tube. The rack housing body is made up of two parts... 1) A cast iron piece that houses the pinion gear and one end bushing, and 2) a steel tube that reaches over to the other end of the housing. I believe those white plastic nubs are some sort of epoxy used to align and lock the two pieces of the assy together. I'm thinking that since the alignment of the long steel tube into the cast portion that houses the pinion gear is important, maybe they loosely fit the two parts together, locked them in an alignment jig, and then used a hard setting thermoplastic to lock the two together. Inject it into the hole until it comes out the other side, and then let it cure in place locking the two parts in alignment. They did similar practice on the 72-on suction piston housings on the carbs, and they also employed that technique on the EFI throttle linkages. They aren't grease fitting holes. Not only are they too small, but if you look inside the rack tube, there are no holes through. No way for grease to get inside the housing to do anything.

I took the bolts out and left the holes open. I think that's how they were supposed to be stock. They are shrouded inside the rubber boots so as long as the boots are in good shape, they will stay clean.

Thanks Site! Here's my chart:

Thanks bud. I don't really know yet. I was close to home when I noticed the problem and managed to coast 90% of the way to my garage with the engine shut off. I let it cool off in the driveway with the hood up, and then after it was cool, I started it and put it away. It started and ran fine, so I'm hopeful I didn't cause any permanent damage. I'll do a compression test in the spring. I appreciate the help, and I'll keep you posted! I've got an F54/P79 motor here that I've been meaning to drop in...