Thanks, Blown. I enjoy stopping to take phots, and it keeps me from rushing at times. And posting online gives me some motivation to keep up momentum.

I inspected the shift rods today. The both look fine, just in need of paint (or powder-coat).

The linkage, though, looks a bit (or more) loose. The plastic bushings might be worn.

It took about 30 seconds to remove the pivot shaft with my press. The bushings are definitely done.

Speaking of the press, I installed the rear wheel bearings in the trailing arms today. Based on my bench testing, I decided to coat the bearing cavity in the arm, which was blasted to bare metal, with Boeshield T-9.

Very easy to press the bearing, with little force required.

I like using a press with a pressure gauge, so that when the bearing is seated, I can see the pressure ramp up.

Bearing in place.

And retainer with shiny new hardware. Mmmm.

Good reason to tap into my newly created home hardware supply, sourced from McMaster-Carr.

Lots of shiny stuff!

Then time to press in the wheel flanges. Note: inner races of the bearing supported from below.

Flange in place.

Trailing arms done!

Terrific work Bob.

I have a bead blaster you are welcome to use if you need to work on some of the really bad stuff.

Tools are Swell!

Agreed. Here's my latest that I picked up from the local freight delivery company today. I was stupid when I bought the Dake bench top model since the working height is only about 16 inches. My excuse is that I replaced an older bench top press.

But I need something with more reach, so I got the Dake floor model. This has a 38 inch working height.

My son will inherit the bench model.

Another batch of parts after Evaporators-rust treatment.

One of the half-shaft flanges has some upturned edges on the inside.

Took care of those with a flat file.

To test the flange flatness, as was discussed in another thread, I scuffed the mounting faces on some emery paper. Looks good.

I just went through the whole thread
amazing

really really nice!

great metal work!

brant

Thanks, Brant. Good to meet you, and thanks for using your 914 to deliver 914 parts!

I took a closer look at one of the CV joints, with all the parts showing lots of wear. Here's the outer housing.

And the cage.

And the inner flange. I suspect these show extreme wear. Time for new CVs?

With all the parts and supplies in hand, I started rebuilding the steering rack.

I never removed the inner pivot bearing, just cleaned out as much old grease as possible.

I made my own grease injector, to fill below the lower bearing.

Then I greased up the rack, and slid that into place, maintaining the original left vs. right.

Here's the pivot, with the upper bearing in place, all greased.

Then packed the interior with more grease.

With the rack centered, I installed the pivot. This took some patient twisting of the rack and pivot to get everything aligned.

Next, the shims I removed and the lock ring.

With everything installed, I checked for end play: zero.

Then the pivot shaft seal, which I found based on dimension.

Seal in place.

Then center the rack...

Well done. I need to do that on one of my cars. Thanks for the documentation.

...and install the yoke, oriented vertically.

With the rack flipped over, I installed the pressure block.

The end of the block sits just below the housing face. I measured 0.1 mm.

Next, I measured the recess in the cover plate, 1.7 mm.

Then I measured the thickness of the original shim, and the gasket.

Here's the math. The total gap, including the gasket, is 2.1 mm. The designed gap is 0.2 mm. Can you spot my math error? The desired shim should be 1.9 mm! But the original shim is 1.85 mm, so all is well.

Here's the pressure spring, and the cover plate with shim ready to install.

Finally, here is the rack all done.

This is awesome, I will be doing this to my rack soon. Thanks for the picture of the seal as finding a replacement was one of my concerns.

Steering rack, part 2.

I started with the eye-bolt build kit.

No instructions, so I made up my own.

Here's the bushing and eye-bolt on the press, with plenty of liquid soap. Centering is important.

After the first attempt to press in the bushing. Watch out for pinching the rubber edge between the piston and the eye-bolt. Ask me how I know.