Looking for a blownup diagram of the 88 steering rack showing its various parts and how it comes apart. The pictures and descriptions I'm seeing in my Haynes/Chilton's manuals don't actually match properly.

The input shaft on my rack moves in and out a good bit, and I want to know whats going on inside before I pull apart my daily driver.

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"If any car is both the parade and the rain, it is the Fiero"

Driving a Fiero is like driving a Rough-Draft, Pontiac got it to work, now its up to you to make it a good car.

If no one else has one readily available, I will scan one in and post it for you tomorrow.

quote Originally posted by Xanth: The input shaft on my rack moves in and out a good bit, and I want to know whats going on inside ...

See below for two scans from the '88 GM/Helm Factory Service Manual.

N.B. The following applies to '88s only. The '84-'87 rack is different.

I have an '88 rack apart on my workbench as I type this. The pinion (input) shaft is retained by a single-race ball bearing located at the bottom end of the shaft, under the domed dust cover. The bearing is retained in the rack housing by a snap ring. The bottom of the pinion shaft extends through the bearing and is retained by a prevailing torque (i.e. locking) nut. It is rare for the ball bearing itself to fail. Most likely, either the nut on your shaft has backed off or the bearing is loose in the housing. You can check both by simply removing the domed dust cover; it is just a press fit in the housing, so you can carefully pry it off.

I haven't tried it myself, but you will probably be able to fix the problem with the rack in the car. You may even be able to do it from under the car, but removing the fiberglass front tub makes things a lot easier and should provide all the access you'll need.

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 07-28-2009).]

quote Originally posted by Marvin McInnis: I have an '88 rack apart on my workbench as I type this

Thank you very much

That should be enough info for me to quickly ID whatever the problem is when I pop it open.

Okay, I've got the cover popped off and found that the retaining ring is missing completely, there isn't even the pieces of a broken one. Looks like when it was rebuilt the ring was never put back on.

So, is it okay for the pinion to have that much movement with the retaining ring missing? If I turn the wheel to the left, the bearing is pushed all the way to the edge of the rack housing, and turning it to the right brings it all the way back to where it actually should be.

If that is a normal range of movement considering the missiong ring then I should be able to just pop in a new ring and be good to go. Hopefully nothing has been damaged by the movement of the pinion.

[This message has been edited by Xanth (edited 07-30-2009).]

If you can just install a snap ring you should be fine. The rack and pinion gears are really lightly loaded for their size, and the sliding speeds are very low. It's possible that the ball bearing won't seat in the housing properly for some reason, or that the bearing is the wrong one for the application and the outer race is too wide, and that's what prevented the rebuilder from installing the snap ring ... but it's more likely they just forgot it. If it were me, and if everything else looked OK, I'd probably just install the snap ring, check that the pinion nut is tight, and close things up. You may have to remove the pinion nut anyway to get enough clearance to install the snap ring. Good luck.

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 07-30-2009).]

Popping in a new clip fixed everything

I've been chasing that annoying front end clunk since I got the car, installing that clip makes a world of difference. Hitting bumps used to shift my steering several degrees without even turning the wheel, now its nice and tight.