The Steering Rack

My kid has been asking me to go with him assemble the car wheels so that we can make it run. I explained him there were lots of other things to be done first but, since I told him before we were going to do it together... I had to make it happen.

The two of us went for some work on the car. I thought mounting the steering rack would be something easy that he could help with. Unpacking was half the fun, playing with tools the other half.

We placed the steering rack on the car and screwed one bolt/nut, where he helped while it was still not requiring too much strenght. His attention span shifts quickly so we stopped the work and went back home. After he went to bed, I came back to finish up.

The rack had lots of play inside the mounts, the bolt holes didn't line up well... Something was missing. Inside the rack mount plastic bag there were two pieces of plastic that I had discarded as "not needed". Ends up they were spacers to put between the rack and the chassis, on the mounting points. I had to trim them a bit to fit but, after a while, the rack was mounted and with no play. I was happy and I hope the kid too.

After that work, it became clear that I'll have to reroute the brake pipe section that goes from the 4-way to the chassis, since it will get in the way of the steering arm when that gets in.