Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Power steering!

I have power steering at last!

Firstly, I must apologise for the relatively poor images. I've got to wait until I can get the car out into some sunlight to get enough decent light for a photo. 



My old mate Warrick came around and modified the original BMW power steering lines (yes, for those of you disbelievers out there, some E21s DID come with power steering - mine for instance!) which normally run to the passenger side of the car and to a seperate reservoir and pump, instead running the pressure from the falcon pump (which conveniently has the same type of fitting as the BMW one) and the return straight to the pump also. 


 At the moment the lines just clear both the exhaust and the power steering. Once the exhaust is properly built, these will be moved to clear that correctly and properly secured.


This meant I could also finally fit a belt. Doing so appeared to be a larger job than anticipated, requiring removal of not just the radiator, but the radiator support bar, headlamp bracket assembly, and front plastics (light surrounds, indicators and kidney grille). Some modification will be required on these parts prior to reinstallation to ensure that should I ever need to change a radiator in a hurry I won't have to remove half the car to do so.


Another photo, this time at the back of the power steering pump showing the factory BMW power steering line going into the back of the falcon pump.


While we were doing this, my daughter Scarlett decided that since this was a race car, it needed (more) stickers - she added these while we weren't looking.


Also, a donation to the cause - a set of headers which I will be cutting up and modifying to work with the constraints of the bay and steering linkage.


Unfortunately it's not all rainbows though. The fuel system appears to have gotten dirt in it causing all sorts of issues with the fuel pressure regulator and with the injectors. I'm going to try and source another fuel rail with injectors and a regulator to suit - just as soon as I can work out which model (EF/L/AU) has a fuel rail with hose clamped lines, rather than screw on ones.

As a result, I was only able to test the steering through part of a rotation between the engine failing to start or failing to run once started (unless someone was constantly messing with the regulator) - this brief period also verified alternator function - something I hadn't been able to do prior to this point because of the lack of drive belt necessitated by the lack of power steering fluid.