Chevette Rack Install

[Vega75randy]

This is mostly for Tim McCabe unless someone else has done this swap. I'd like to hear from Tim or someone that has done this and how they went about it. From shorting the rack to how and were they installed it. Would you need to make another cross member to mount it? What other parts would you need to make it as trouble free as possible? I remember Tim saying it will have around 1/2" side to side less than stock. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[cacmanjr]

A friend has done the conversion for me. He is also installing an LC2 and 200 - 4R. He has built frame connectors, etc, etc. The rack did not need to be narrowed. His name is Scott Klepinger and you can email him at ur50slo@aol.com. I have a few pictures I can send you if you will email me off list at cacmanjr@aol.com.

[Troadster]

If you doin't mind please send those pictures to me. I am thinking of doing that to mine. tmodel272@earthlink.net Thanks

[Fasterthansome]

Chevette rack.

[Troadster]

That don't look to hard to do. Look good. Did you half trouble hooking up the column?

[Vega75randy]

Fasterthensome: would you mind telling us how you did the install? We diffinitly would love to see more pic's of your very clean installation. Did you shorten it any? Please tell us more.

[NixVegaGT]

Bill (bill1978v8) sent me a response to a question about his rack setup. The quotes are my questions.

Do I just need to mount a ujoint on the end of the shaft at the firewall? Any parts recomendations? Did you have any difficulty adapting the ujoints? Did you use the stock steering shaft? It kinda looks like that...

What I did was put a u joint on the splined end of the steering column coming through the firewall. This has a rag joint from the factory on a Monza. Take off the coupler and it's splined (1"-48, I think). After that I ran 3/4" DD shafting to a second u joint (3/4 DD x 3/4 DD). This let me run the shaft away from the exhaust. After the second U-joint I put a support bearing mounted on a piece of angle and bolted to the unibody. A third u joint (3/4 DD x 3/4 DD) ran down to the rack. This is the parts list from the firewall to the rack:

U joint - 1"-48 spline
3/4 DD shaft
U joint - 3/4 DD x 3/4 DD
3/4 DD shaft
3/4" + .006 Rod end support bearing
U joint - 3/4 DD x 3/4 DD
3/4 DD shaft
3/4 DD to Pinto rack coupler
'74 Pinto rack
Tie tod adapters - Pinto to GM bump steer correction kit

I'm planning on custom headers so I can run the shaft where I need it. I was thinking behind the exhaust or maybe over the last port and under the next. What do you think?

You can run it where it gives the most clearance. Try to keep it to two u -joints but if you use more than two or use a double u joint you need to run a support bearing.
________________

It's not an answer to the shortening question but it's something...

[SunbirdMan]

Does this rack have 6" of side to side travel?

[88iroc]

I would love to see some pics of that yellow car!!

[Fasterthansome]

It is not my car.
I found pics of it a while back and liked the install and k member work.

Here is where I found it.

http://drag.race-cars.com/carsold/chevy ... 7519pp.htm

[DEMON Precision]

damn frank you found a killer there , sure gave me some ideas . how things out your way ? getting ready to build a shop out here .

mikey

[Fasterthansome]

I liked the set up so I figured I would copy it No sense trying to get creative.

[NixVegaGT]

Motorhead porn...

[Vega75randy]

Ok, now this is great for the straight line crowd but what about the 100% street driving. Will it be better then even a new stock gear box? That was my original intent was to find out if it would be worth doing for a pure street driven car, and I mean a daily driver not just a weekend cruiser.

[NixVegaGT]

Good question, Randy. It's not an easy swap. There is some fabrication involved. The difference is subtle on a daily driver but I prefer it. There are so many joints between you and the road it causes an isolation from it. Slop is compounded in the gearbox because of the number of joints too. The gear box works great though. It's more about driving feel than utility.

The differences come out more when you are pushing it and need better feedback to correct with.

For a daily driver the gearbox is fine. I prefer the rack though even for daily driving but I've got all kinds of disfuctions.