Z3/e36 rack info I am working on....

[george graves]

Been researching the Z3/E36 rack stuff.

- The first step is to get my grimmy little hands on one. I'm a little leary of buying a used ebay rack. Hell, those racks could have been sitting out in the rain all winter. And the price of a used rack (unless you get a deal) is not a small amount of $$$. So I've been looking for a re-man rack. So far all I've come up with is....

http://www.carsteering.com/selectyearmake.asp

http://www.drivewire.com/bmwparts/steeringrack.html

http://www.steeringrack.com/

http://www.buy-steering.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=BS&Category_Code=BMWZ3_

http://replacement.autopartswarehouse.com/parts/autopartswarehouse/wizard.jsp?year=2000&make=BM&model=Z3--006&category=M&part=Steering+Rack

Interesting thing about stearingrack.com is that when you bring up a z3 2.5L rack, it shows it as a rack from a "ACURA" - hmmm - wonder if they are the same part?

And the price aint bad - $219....can't hate that.

Now- the bolt spacing of all z3/e30/e36 rack are the same. To make the rack fit you do have to make some spacers.



I'm going ot try and have this done locally if I can if not, I'll make up soime drawings and subbmit it to http://www.emachineshop.com/
These are important, they deal with
bump steering - I won't go into that....

Also, you need to make up a adapter/spacer for the actual stearing like www.zionsvilleautosport.com does

(Note the adapter is the two peices of tubbing that goes thru the two left hand side blots of the right hand side pic - not the machined round spacer - that's a replacement for the rubber stearing guibo)

Or you can also use some e36 parts as outlined on http://www.e30zone.co.uk/

Thats it for now...

Any of you that has done this swap - please chime in and give me your thoughts....

1.) I can't seem to find a ZF made rack for the Z3 - they allseem to be made by "Maval" - Is the the OEM brand?

[JeffRR]

I'm in the middle of doing my swap.

My car is a 90 325is and the new sweet rack is a 95' M3.

Last weekend I got the new rack installed and started looking at running the hoses. I'm trying to route the E30 high pressure line, I'm borowwing a tubing bender this weekend and with that I should be able to make it work. The low pressure E30 line looks pretty easy to install.

My steering shaft adapter is a little different than the Zionsville one, basically I just took the 2 ends that I needed (E36 lower and E30 upper) and made a Al spacer to make up the difference in length.

Like I said I'm still in the middle of this install, hopefully to be finished this weekend.

[JasonH]

My car is a 90 325is...

Did you swap out your airbag steering column?

[JeffRR]

My car is a 90 325is...

Did you swap out your airbag steering column?

No, I did read that they are different.
But after getting under there and tearing the old rack out I couldn't see why the different column would make a difference other then my adapter is different than the Zionsville unit.

Maybe I'm missing something........

Before I started this project I searched for info on the airbag steering column debate and couldn't really find anything that pointed to a reason why I would need a non-air bag column.

I don't actually still have the airbag on the car, the original steering wheel was swapped out with a Mono by the previous owner.

[jht3]

apparently zionsville did complete a rack swap on a airbag equiped e30 m3 and vowed to never do it again. there is a clearance issue, but i can't remember exactly what it is right now

[cheades]

My 95 M3 rack swap was pretty easy to do on my 89 325i, only took about an hour or two to take the old one out and make the new one fit.

Shameless plug, I have another 95 M3 rack if someone is interested.

[JasonH]

My car is a 90 325is...

Did you swap out your airbag steering column?

No, I did read that they are different.
But after getting under there and tearing the old rack out I couldn't see why the different column would make a difference other then my adapter is different than the Zionsville unit.

Maybe I'm missing something........

Before I started this project I searched for info on the airbag steering column debate and couldn't really find anything that pointed to a reason why I would need a non-air bag column.

I don't actually still have the airbag on the car, the original steering wheel was swapped out with a Mono by the previous owner.

In a previous post, you mentioned that your rack is "installed". Just to clarify the obvious, it is bolted to the subframe AND the coupler/adapter is installed? If so, do you have any binding of the coupler as you turn from lock to lock? Also, what coupler did you use and did you modify it in anyway?

I picked up an early steering column to swap in, because I had HEARD that the air-bag column would not work. When I mocked it up in a parts car with the column and an unmodified early coupler it appeared to fit correctly without any binding. What occured to me in looking at it, is that the early coupler has two U-joints, whereas the air-bag only has one. Because of the added angle created by the E36 racks, I could see why having a second U-joint in the coupler would be beneficial.

If you could take any pictures, that would be very helpful.

[JeffRR]

Sorry for any confusion, the rack is sitting in the car but it isn't bolted in place, I've left it loose so that I can work on the lines. So I didn't install the steering shaft yet.

I did briefly install my steering shaft on the rack side to look at the angle that the shaft would be sitting at. My initial though was that the difference between the angles was too great for the single U-joint. I figured that worst case I'll have to make another adapter with 2 U-joints.

I'm wondering if the spline is commom between the E30 U-joint and the E36 rack...

[Switch]

i was looking at the kits on zionautosport.com they have a 2.70 lock to lock column!!! thats like.. real tight right? one turn of the steering wheel and you at the next lock!! (or around) how would a ratio like this be at high speed driving (i say high speed... 80 to 130) and would it be any better at lower speeds... i guess what i'm tring to say is.. would it be ok for a daily driver (i understand "daily driver" is relative to the driver.. but it confuses me why more people don't have these LOW of steering ratios.. thanks..

[Ryan Stewart]

So is the adapter simply a spacer that acts like a guibo with two from one side and 4 from another? I want to do the swap but dont like the idea of paying zionsville $400 for a used rack, rebuilt but not used.

[DanGillan]

http://www.r3vlimited.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=19444

this may or may not work for the adapter, if someone needs the measurements off of our solid guibo to see if it will work for their swap, i can get the exact measurements off of it.

[MattM20]

i was looking at the kits on zionautosport.com they have a 2.70 lock to lock column!!! thats like.. real tight right? one turn of the steering wheel and you at the next lock!! (or around) how would a ratio like this be at high speed driving (i say high speed... 80 to 130) and would it be any better at lower speeds... i guess what i'm tring to say is.. would it be ok for a daily driver (i understand "daily driver" is relative to the driver.. but it confuses me why more people don't have these LOW of steering ratios.. thanks..

i have the 2.7 z3 rack and it is perfectly fine for daily driving. it feels as nimble as a standard e46 only the steering is a little tighter. the z3 rack is great in parking lots, you dont have to take your hands off the wheel; and it is very stable on the highway and at 100+ speeds. if i remember correctly the new porsche has 2.68 turns lock to lock and the new m5/6 has even less, so its not like 2.7 is unreasonably quick.

[MattM20]

So is the adapter simply a spacer that acts like a guibo with two from one side and 4 from another? I want to do the swap but dont like the idea of paying zionsville $400 for a used rack, rebuilt but not used.

you just need to modify your existing coupler, which is what zionsville does. the steering guibo remains unchanged, but you have to do a little grinding to allow for more movement in the joints, and make some spacers out of OE bmw parts. the instructions that zionsville gives are pretty simple, only they charge $30 for the cdrom.

[JeffRR]

My car is a 90 325is...

Did you swap out your airbag steering column?

No, I did read that they are different.
But after getting under there and tearing the old rack out I couldn't see why the different column would make a difference other then my adapter is different than the Zionsville unit.

Maybe I'm missing something........

Before I started this project I searched for info on the airbag steering column debate and couldn't really find anything that pointed to a reason why I would need a non-air bag column.

I don't actually still have the airbag on the car, the original steering wheel was swapped out with a Mono by the previous owner.

In a previous post, you mentioned that your rack is "installed". Just to clarify the obvious, it is bolted to the subframe AND the coupler/adapter is installed? If so, do you have any binding of the coupler as you turn from lock to lock? Also, what coupler did you use and did you modify it in anyway?

I picked up an early steering column to swap in, because I had HEARD that the air-bag column would not work. When I mocked it up in a parts car with the column and an unmodified early coupler it appeared to fit correctly without any binding. What occured to me in looking at it, is that the early coupler has two U-joints, whereas the air-bag only has one. Because of the added angle created by the E36 racks, I could see why having a second U-joint in the coupler would be beneficial.

If you could take any pictures, that would be very helpful.

I ended up getting a non-airbag column for the swap, you do need the 2nd U-joint.

How bad was it to swap the column?

Thanks,
Jeff

[JasonH]

I ended up getting a non-airbag column for the swap, you do need the 2nd U-joint.

How bad was it to swap the column?

Thanks,
Jeff

I was able to pull out the airbag column last night and will likely pull the shaft today. It wasn't very difficult to do once I discovered the third "mystery" bolt that secures the column to the mounting bracket under the dash. If you haven't looked under there yet, the airbag column only uses two shear bolts that are designed to release forward. At the far end (toward the firewall), there is a third bolt that hard mounts the column to the mounting bracket. Once the column is free it will come right out if the pinch bolt has been removed.

Since I already have an E30 M3 rack installed, I may end up spacing down the steering column and trying that for awhile. One thing that I like about the airbag column is that it is centered and perpendicular to the driver. The non-airbag column, on the other hand, comes out at more of an angle towards the left side of the driver. The upper u-jount under the dash really helps with the angle. I would very much like to keep the airbag column for those reasons, but the length is just too great after the firewall.

On Tuesday, Bryson and I were going to install the E36 racks in our cars. While I ended up having to replace the seals on my tranny ( :roll: ), he went ahead and installed an E36 M3 rack on his non-airbag car (I'll let him chime in if he wants to). It went in very smoothly. The thing that needs to be done is to grind down the u-joints on the coupler. In fact, you really only need to do this on the upper of the two u-joints. There wasn't enough angle on the lower joint to require it. It's probably a good idea to do anyway, though. Frankly, I think the Zionsville kit is a waste of money. Aside from the grinding, there were no other modifications necessary to the coupler. The splines on the E30 coupler mate up with the splines on the E36 couple perfectly and there wasn't even a reason to install a fancy spacer/guibo. No, the coupler does not line up with the groove in the splines of the E36 rack. So what you can do is use use a smaller diameter pinch bolt, bypassing the groove. You are just securing the coupler in the same way that is done for the upper portion of the coupler. Just be careful about sliding the splines of the rack too far into the coupler. If you do, it will cause binding within the u-joint.