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MG MGB Technical - Steering rack pinion: surface wear

I have removed the steering pinion from my steering rack as the oil seal was leaking. (plenty of advice in the archives on how to do this).

On inspecting the pinion around where the seal makes contact the surface is pitted. (see photo)

Should I:

a)Smooth the surface with fine emery cloth
b)Degrease and refit
c) Get it machined

My concern is that removing material could potentialy reduce the seal performance.
Any thoughts would be welcome.


Richard Thompson

1. If you use grease the seal hasn't got a lot of work to do except keeping muck out, but the lip seal will be damaged..
2. If you smooth it, a replacement seal can accommodate a few thou reduction in diameter, depends how deep the recess is.
3. I've no doubt you can get a lip seal with a slightly smaller inner diameter.
4. You could build up the worn part with weld and then stick it in a lathe and turn it down.
Allan Reeling

That's really bad, can't see how it got as pitted as that, short of being left standing for years and rusting.

Speedi Sleeve?
Paul Hunt

Allan
I'm tempted to smooth it out and hope a seal is made. I'd expect it to seal even though it's a few thou down on diameter as you suggest.

Paul,
Speedi sleeve looks like a solution I'll adopt if I can't get a good seal with just replacing the oil seal. I suspect that the pitting is due to the spring in the seal abrading the pinion over the years. To the best of my knowledge it is 42 years old as I have never changed it since 1986, when I bought the car, and I have no reason to believe that it was changed before I acquired it.

Thanks for your comments.

Richard
Richard Thompson

I don't think that you can use a speedi sleeve. From what I know the shaft has to be slid through the top bearing. A speedi sleeve will increase the diameter of the shaft, stopping it from going through the bearing.

Herb
Herb Adler

Herb,

I think you would be correct as it is quite a tight fit in the casing/bush.

Here's what I have achieved with wet and dry no less than 600 grit working up to 1200. (See photo)

Using a blue permanent marker as engineer's blue, a grove is evident showing where the spring in the seal has ground the pinion. This took nearly 2 hours by hand I still need to do more to get a smooth journal. So tomorrow evening's activities are sorted.


Richard Thompson

This thread was discussed between 01/02/2015 and 02/02/2015

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