I'm in the process of rebuilding the rack on my 87 GT with a new bushing and inner tie rods form Rodney. The issue I am having is when inserting the pinion gear back into the rack the manual says to start with 49.8 mm of the rack protruding from the housing and the pinion gear pinch bolt notch at the 4:30 position. The confusing part is that when the gear is inserted the "finished" position in the manual has the pinch bolt notch at the 3pm position and 49.8mm of the rack still protruding from the housing. As I tap the pinion gear in it meshes with the rack gear and pulls more of the rack into the housing. So unless I am loosing my freakin mind (possible it is 111degrees in my garage today) there is no way for that start and end measurement to be the same. Can anyone give me some advice on this. Thanks.

this is my rack from my late model 86 GT with Rodney bushing being installed. I ran into that problem as well but decided to put it back together at what I thought looked right and using Rodney's instructions. Basically Ignoring the dimensions, and lined up my front tires with the rear using string, then aligned the pinion with the rack in accordance with my steering wheel position before I tightened down the column. The star key I believe had a specific turn ratio but was in the manual. Sorry don't remember from off top of my head. When I did alignment at the shop my alignment wasn't to far off, but still needed. I have also read that if your rack feels sloppy after reinstall tighten down the star key more could help. I didn't need to do that though. Hope this helped a little good luck with the overhaul.

Thanks for the reply and nice red paint job on the rack. I ended up stripping the paint off mine. It was a rebuild from autozone and they painted the entire thing including the bellows with this thin black paint that you could scratch off with your fingernails. Based on that and the fact that the rack is only two years old and already needs rebuilding I wasn't about to get another Autozone rebuild....lifetime warranty or not. I will definitely try your suggestion with the string. I did end up getting the pinion gear pretty close to the numbers in the manual. Mine was at about 51mm with the pinion gear at the 3pm position. It may have been a different measurement since this rack has the sport steering option. I'll be putting it in tomorrow.

Whether the pinion rotates to the 3:00 position and the shaft stays stationary, or the pinion stays stationary and the rack moves while installing the pinion, the result is the same. To double check that the proper teeth are meshed once it's installed simply use a pair of vise-grips to rotate the pinion shaft until 49.8 mms of the rack are showing again. If at that point the notch on the pinion shaft is at 3:00, then you're good to go.

Think about it this way... Because of the shape of the curved teeth on the pinion, something MUST move when you mesh those teeth with the straight teeth on the rack. Either the rack must slide a little, or the pinion shaft must turn a little. You simply cannot engage the pinion teeth with the rack without SOMETHING moving somewhere.

If you're operating from a recommended starting point, then the ending point should end up where desired.