Daft thought that I half think I read somewhere or maybe made up myself whilst under the influence of beer:

Could you use a power steering rack, without power assist, as a quick rack?

As I understand it, most p/s racks are quicker than a standard rack.

thoughts?

Thanks,
Greg H

If you do a search this was discussed recently at some length.

so it has. doh.
sorry guys.

http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=21171

I see it has, but really missed the point!!!!

I know where you are coming from as I tried to do the same on a RWD Peugeot 205 that I built, where I used Sierra Cosworth front suspension, and wanted a quickrack.

As you say, the Sierra power rack is 2.8 turns lock to lock, and without the hydraulics connected up sounds like a good proposition. I stripped one down, machined the piston off the centre of the rack, removed the seals and re-assembled it, but my worry was that the pinion shaft is not one piece on these. It is in two pieces within the rack casing, with some sort of "springy" coupling between them (you can't actually see it, but if you put one half ov the pinion shaft in a vice and turn the other shft it can move a bit!), that operates the fluid control valve. This is the torque sensing bit and I didn't like the idea of the movement, and without assistance I was worried it might break or something (probably not though!) and the effect it would have on steering feel.

I the end I abandoned the idea and used a normal quickrack kit in a std manual casing.

So not a daft idea at all, but I would be concerned about the movement in the pinion shaft.