[Corsa B 1993-2000] Replacing Track Rods + Track Rod Ends on Car with Elec. Power Steering

[gb33]

[Samo]

Count the number of turns you undo the track rod, then when putting on the new one make sure it turned on the same number of turns you took it off with. This will ensure you get the correct tracking. Then just tighten up the nut up to it as tight as you can.

Job done

[gb33]

That's a good tip as means to preserve the tracking, thanks Samo.

The issue I have is that I'm not just replacing the track rod ends (part 12), but also the track rods (part 11) because they also have inner ball joints that screw into the steering rack. Normally the inner joints are hidden by dust boots (3) so you can't see that they're there. The inspector said that one of the inner joints ball joints is bad, which means the entire track rod (11) comes out of the steering rack. My issue is that I don't know whether there are any precautions to take to prevent the steering rack from being torqued when I install the new track rods.

[gb33]

So I took a look to see if there's a place to support the steering rack whilst the track rods get removed and reinstalled.

I turned the steering wheel to a full right hand lock and then pulled the far side dust boot (part 3 in picture above) away to reveal the rack (6) to inner track rod (11) connection. Turns out that there is a flat spot on the rack and it appears to be sized for the oddball, very rarely used 18mm spanner. Thanks GM/Vauxhall/Opel for using stupid and hard-to-find sizes for all of your fasteners so that anyone that wants to fix their own cars has to buy extra bits and pieces that are not part of a basic automotive tool kit.

Unfortunately, I don't have an 18mm spanner, but the 17mm was too small and the 19mm was very loose fitting, so I'm going to have to borrow or buy one. To play it safe, I'm going to get a helper to hold a spanner on this spot whilst I remove the old and install the new track rods. I'll see if I can get a picture of it when I do it for future reference on the forum.