Series 3 Steering relay - Brand new, but too stiff

Hi All

I've just bought a N.O.S. relay for my S3 rebuild and having carefully installed it, find it is way too stiff. I can swing it around using a 500 mm lever, but using anything shorter is a real effort. Way more than the 12 lb I'm aiming for. The manual says if the action is too stiff you need to remove the thrust washer retainers and directly oil the bushes.

My unit is filled with oil. I know this because I filled it up. It was dry. None appears to be leaking past the bottom seal, which is encouraging.

Does removing the thrust washer retainer result in the big spring explosion or is that one level further in? I am loathe to take the thing completely to bits because of the spring drama but if that's what's needed then I suppose I will have no choice. If there is a halfway house that'd be a lot better. Any wisdom happily received.

Thanks a lot
Andrew

Hi
You say it’s full of oil, did you remove a bottom bolt to allow air flow? Allow oil to escape & refit
Done this years ago
Unsure about removing the plate to take the tension off the spring. I had the same worry

The spring explosion will only happen if you knock out the centre shaft (don't do it....been there, done it, still got the hole in the shed wall..).
As said its a pig to fill with oil and will take ages to do, you must remove 2 bolts to let air out.

Not done it but was told years ago if you replace a bolt with a grease nipple and fill your grease gun with gear oil it will fill better, but as said I haven't done it before so don't know

Intersting idea but could be very messy. I can see a number of ways it could go wrong, propably best to put a lot of paper down!

I used a syringe into one of the removed bolt holes. Was slow to push the oil in but worked ok.

Yes - There's a lot of traffic on the web about filling these things with oil. My approach was to simply take two bolts out of the top and fire oil in from my little oilcan into one hole until it stopped bubbling at the other. I used 1.5 oilcans full, so I picked it was full up at that point. I haven't yet tried removing a bottom-end bolt, but suspect that I'd need a fair amount of newspaper on the floor!

So - it would appear that the thing is full of oil, but swing as I might on the big lever, it doesn't seem to be getting any easier to turn. I wonder if it is corroded....

Thanks Rodeo Joe - I will avoid hitting the shaft when the retainer plate is removed. Must admit to a certain nervousness about the whole business. Might try with the old relay first, to see what's inside.

Of course the irony is that the old relay worked a treat but I apparently buggered it with the 14lb sledge hammer and massive hydraulic puller getting it out of the cross-member. It was very, very solidly rusted in place, but its innards were in reasonable order, from the feel of it before I started hitting it.

(I needed to remove it prior to galvanising the chassis, before anyone asks....)

Thanks for input so far.

Cheers
Andrew

I take out the bolt closest to the front bumper and the bolt closest to the bulkhead. I drip oil in with a plastic condiment bottle from the grocery store. I will sometimes turn the steering wheel from lock to lock a few times, which seems to help the oil flow down into the relay. These days it drips very little so I only occasionally remove the two bolts and add a few drops - but when I bought the vehicle it was empty. It took several days of infrequently checking and adding oil to finally get it full. I was amazed at how it would finally seem full and then the next day or so be able to take quite a lot more oil. Seemed to take forever to get it full the first time.

OK - So the theme here appears to be that we really need to be completely sure that it is absolutely full of oil, and perhaps it might not be quite there yet.

I'll remove a bottom bolt (just to check that things are wet at the base of the unit) and take off the top ones again to see if I can squeeze a few more drops in.

Certainly it appears that simple lubrication SHOULD be the answer, rather than stripping down. It'd save me a lot of hassle if it is!

What I haven't tried yet (which just occurred to me) is mounting it upside down in the vice. That should ensure that both ends are nicely oiled up, even if it is not 100% full.

Cheers
Andrew

Turning the unit upside down did not have the desired result! So tonight I took the top and bottom retainer plates off and used a cramp and a big socket to push the ends of the split bushes in a bit to be dead sure the oil has got in there. I drained all the oil out first - about half a coffee cup full, so probably pretty full.

Once I had pushed the bushes in a little, they popped out back into place and then the action was considerably easier.

However - When I put the retainer plates back on, the sodding thing stiffened up again. It is as if the retainers/thrust washers are bearing too hard on the shoulders on the shaft. After mucking about with it for about two hours, in desperation I took the top retainer plate off the old relay (dry as a bone inside and full of mud), turned about 50 thou off the front face of the thust washer and installed it on the new body.

Better! But still not 16lb. About 24 lb, which is too much.

Fed up with it now and it's late, so I'll turn a bit more off the old thrust tomorrow and see if that works. I'm picking the shaft is very slightly overlong.

If anyone else has struck this issue, please post.

Thanks
Andrew

Manual gives 15 to 27lb as it is new I would expect it to be closer to the higher figure.

I use a short length of 3/16 brake pipe. One end fits reasonably well into the threaded hole in the top of the relay, the other end connects to a length of flexible tube which connects to my oil can. By loosening one of the other bolts in the top, I can pump oil in through one bolt, and the air escapes via the other.

Rodeo Joe said:

The spring explosion will only happen if you knock out the centre shaft (don't do it....been there, done it, still got the hole in the shed wall..).
As said its a pig to fill with oil and will take ages to do, you must remove 2 bolts to let air out.

Click to expand...

I did this on my 2a, dont recall the finer details but it worked well after refurb.
had to collect the spring from next doors garden

Thanks for those figures, Blackburn. I checked my books and depending on which author we believe there are several different options ranging from 12 to 27lb. I agree, being a new unit it should be at the upper end of the spectrum.

Haynes said 12-16, but I'll go with the official manual, thanks. It means less lathe work. There's no way that this would have worked without machining a bit off the face of the upper thrust washer. What I found was with no retainer plate on the top the pull was around 16 lb. Put the plate on with loose bolts and it was unchanged. Finger tight bolts and the shaft was definitely beginning to stiffen up. Final nip on the bolts and the shaft pull went up to around 50lb.

So I machined around 50 thou off the face of the top thrust washer on the lathe and now we're sitting at about 24lb. So - it appears that we're all good now. Oil back in again. What a performance!

Thanks for all the advice.
Andrew