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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Heritage Shell Steering Column Alignment

My Sprite has an early Heritage Shell. I bought the car well after this was fitted. I have a rattle from the steering column when I drive over a bump. It looks like this is coming from the column where it passed through the bulkhead. I can see a mark on the column where it is rubbing on the side of the hole, to the passenger side. But the top bracket, the one behind the dash, is not secured using the captive nuts. Two holes have been drilled just to the side of captives to move the bracket to the passenger's side, hence the column rubbing. I suspect if I use the captive nuts the column wil be out of alignment. Can anyone comment?

Jan T
J Targosz

Hi

You can get a rubber dust excluder that fits into the bulkhead and allows the column to slide through it. Should stop and knocking or rubbing.

The bracket that holds the column in place behind the dash should have locking washers as well as the bolts.

There’s some photos of mine when I rebuilt it recently.

https://www.mgmidgetrestoration.com/2021/04/steering-column-rebuild-and-fitting.html

Hope that helps

James
James Paul

Hi James,

Thanks for the very prompt reply. I attach a couple of pics, one showing where the column is touching the bulkhead and the other, slightly more obscure, where the top bracket has been fitted into new holes rather than the captive nuts.

I note from your pics the rack mountings have slotted holes. I wonder if I loosen the bolts attaching these I would be able to move the top of the column over to the drivers door, use the correct captive nuts and stop the binding.

I do have a Front Line telescopic kit fitted and there is a slight bump steer so maybe the rack is slightly off centre. I had terrible problems with the rack positioning on my Elan but this has shims under the mounting bracket.

Cheers

Jan T






J Targosz

For road use the FL dampers front and rear need to be softer settings, 1 to 4 depending on your car's set up, tyre pressures and your tastes or driving style.
Nigel Atkins

Hi Jan,

I would like you should use the captive nuts, but possibly the reason why they are not in there now is due to your steering modifications.

No harm in trying it out.

Good luck

James
James Paul

The Front line should not effect the rack/column as it is only replacing the shock absorbers.

What I'm not sure about is the Heritage shell and rack types - as the shell has a significant input of bits from the 1500 do you need the later Triumph rack ?

What age was the donor car and what rack do you have fitted ?

Only a thought as I'm not sure if the rack bolt centres would allow the incorrect rack to be fitted ?

My RWA Heritage shell (Triumph rack) has the column in the centre of the bulkhead hole and utilises the captive nuts.
richard b

Does your rack have the correct shimming between mounting bracket and the heritage frame? There should be a packer just on the nearside bracket.
GuyW

Hi Guy,

I was wondering about that shim when I rebuilt mine.

I could see a reference to it on the Moss diagrams but thought it would only provide longitudinal adjustment and not left to right. But as there are no pictures of the thing I don't know enough about it.

Or is it supposed to help with the alignment of the tie rod ends to the steering arm on the stub axle?
James Paul

I thought that Guy but it seemed a lot out of alignment - hence my query about rack types.

R.
richard b

Guy,

On the Triumph rack the WSM notes the packing on the side nearest the pinion - so for RHD the offside ?

R.
richard b

I can't remember my early SWA Heritage shell on my previous Spridget now but the Triumph style Argentinian aftermarket steering rack I now have was an awkward fit in my present RWA Heritage shell. The Heritage shells aren't without issues.

My FL comment was general.
Nigel Atkins

The rack shim on the early type is most important and controls the alignment of the column through the bulkhead. I’m not sure on the later rack as I haven’t worked on a car with one.
But if there wasn’t a shim fitted the column would surely be misaligned in the opposite way to the way Jan describes? Either way that all needs to be checked.

In the dim and distant past when I owned an early heritage shell car I remember trying to sort out the steering and I remember the column alignment wasn’t very good. In fact the whole steering felt very ‘dead’ even after checking, rebuilding and realigning everything.

Worst case scenario if alignment with the correct captive nut holes isn’t possible then perhaps a different bracket could be made so they can be used? I made one for my car so I could get rid of the column shroud.




John Payne

I have checked and there are no vertical shims at all. I will fit the top column bracket and then shim out the rack so everything is in line.

I spent ages sorting the rack shimming on my Elan. If you regard the suspension, looking from the front, as an uneven parallelogram the knuckle on the rack should be at the centre of the vertical inner face of the parallelogram. If it is not as the suspension rises and falls there will be a tug on the rack and you will get bump steer. With the Elan I had to assemble the front suspension without the springs and shim the rack mountings so I could raise and lower the wishbones without the wheels moving in or out.

I am simply going to shim the Sprites rack so everything is in line and hope that when Items it out for a test everything is OK!

Jan T
J Targosz

I agree with John I.e. without a shim you'd think the column would align more towards the driver's side than the correct position. That certainly applies to the Frogeye and, I presume, all models with the earlier rack.
Bill Bretherton

Ok, firstly I was careful l in choosing my words - does it have the correct shim. It might possibly have been bodged with too thick a shim rather than the shim being missed, which would deflect it that way.

My understanding is that the rack was designed for a car where the driver sat further away from the centre line of the car, so the pinion and steering column is angled outwards further than is needed for the Spridgets. The shims on the side opposite to the pinion move the rack forward at that end, turning the column the small amount needed to align the steel shaft at the driver's heart.

One time with my car I had a really annoying buzzy rattle that seemed to come from the steering column or cowl, or something in that area behind the dash. After a great deal of searching I failed to track the noise down. But when I later rebuilt the rack, removing a shim from the ball cap nut at the inner end of the track rod the buzzing just stopped!
GuyW

Guy,

IIRC the early rack is the Morris Minor rack but as the MM rack is behind the axle line the RHD spridget uses a LHD MM rack and vice versa.
David Billington

Yes, that is correct David. But the shimming is still needed on the end opposite to the pinion to adjust the angle of the column for the narrower seating position. I wondered if someone had lost the correct shim and used something else, slightly thicker. Or maybe the Heritage cross rail was assembled out of alignment. It wouldn't be the first error on an Heritage shell!

Either way, one could slacken the rack clamp to chassis bolts, and pull the column over to match the scuttle holes. Check the steering operates freely, preferably with the TREs disconnected. Then tighten the rack bolts, adjusting shims if necessary, and recheck. Finally road test to check the steering self centres.
GuyW

Maybe just let the column brackets off and see where it sits naturally then shim the rack to get the firewall hole lined up then hopefully it'll be lined up up the top
I had the same issue as you with my elan, had pulled the rack out to reco it and the shims went everywhere--I thought, I can fix that and fitted half to each side, well, that wasn't so good and went to all the trouble of measuring it up to eliminate bump steer then read that Colin had built 'some' bumpsteer into them to make them feel right on the road and the shim stack height was stamped into each car on the pedestal, so rack out again and cleaned my newly painted frame up and found the stamped numbers 230 on rh side and 10 on the left
Shimmed it to that and measured from the top of the shim line to the lower pivot centre and it was exactly equal and best bit,it steers spot on
willy
William Revit

The procedure is fairly well covered in the WSM (well for later racks at least) much as Willy noted set it up loose at pinion end work rack and see where it naturally settles.

R.
richard b

Have now dismantled the steering and front suspension. No shims anywhere. All the suspension components including the Front Line conversion are brand new and still have labels. The rack is sloppy and obviously the original so I have bought a replacement from the Welsh MG Centre. I wonder if when the car was reshelled about 15 years ago new racks were unobtainable. Why do people use bolts that are too long. The ones securing the radiator protruded about 1" from the back of the captive nuts. Unscrewing them 1/8th of a turn at a time took ages.

Cheers

Jan T
J Targosz

The rack shims go between the rack mounting brackets and the chassis rails that it bolts to. There is also a squashable packing piece that goes between the bracket clamps and the rack. I have used a couple of turns of that self-annealing insulation tape. Its firm enough to grip the rack but not so much as to risk cracking the C shaped clamp piece.
GuyW

This thread was discussed between 21/06/2021 and 26/06/2021

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