Steering my way back....

The end float is supposed to be 6-10 thousandths and I set hers to 8/1000ths

Today I was able to start assembling the steering rack, it's sure nice to work with clean painted parts! The steering had a 'sticky' spot in it before so I paid close attention to getting the tolerances correct today.

The cleaned rack & pinion ready to go

Getting the rack back together took a couple of hours so with most of the morning left I weighed the pros and cons of pulling out the radiator. Since I was going to replace all the hoses this seemed like a good time to do it.  I'm glad I did because there was still a lot of debris that came out when I ran water through it out in the yard.  After the water cleared and the boulders stopped rolling out I decided to clean it up a bit and paint it.  Fancy job? No, but it will look better and protect it.

Hose showing the coiled spring in it  that was used to keep it from collapsing, unfortunately it's almost completely disolved

The lower hose showing why it would not have been a good idea to drive the car even if it had started, something has been rubbing and eaten all the way down to the cord.  would have ruptured about the time the engine got warm if a pressure cap had been on it

The radiator getting 'flushed' out

The header tank, also taken off and flushed out, lots of debris.

Painted the radiator but kept paint off the fins, also painted the header tank with hammertone paint.  

Well, thats it for this week, next week I'll start on the suspension. I'll be cleaning it up and replacing all the bushings.
Cheers