Tell me about the 280zx Manual Rack and Pinion...

[dickie]

I heard that they only came on the early and ZXR cars in another thread. Is this true? What qualifies as "early?"

How rare are they? How much do they usually go for, remanufactured or in used condition?

Forgive me if this is common knowledge, I have been searching for a few hours now across Nico and the rest of the web and have only encountered bits and pieces.

TIA!

[ZXR_KiD]

I've only heard about them in '79s (ZXR is 79) I think all 80's and newer have power steering, 80.5-82.5 actually have a recripicating ball steering box instead of a rack and pinion, I've learned from expirience on my project car that you can pull the power steering off of it and it isn't much stiffer (if any) than the manual rack on my ZXR.

but if you want a true manual rack goodluck, they aren't easy to come by

[evildky]

I fixed your title, and I believe you could get a manual rack on any 79 but later they went to recirculating ball then back to power rack and pinion for 82-83, you can convert a power rack to manual, I did it on my 87 300zx

[dickie]

thanks evildky, i realized i put SX instead of ZX too late. my fingers are just trained to do it from posting in 240sx sections all the time.

by converting to manual, do you just mean plugging the rack? the reason i brought this topic up in the first place is because the members in the 240 section who have done this seem to think its not a permanent fix and a rack from a car made for manual steering makes it easier to handle...

i would be modding the 280 rack to use on my s-chassis.

[evildky]

I'd just convert your exhisting rack to manual, all you have to do is take the lines off of it and route the 2 ends of the ram to each other, then when one side pushes fluid out it gets sucked into the other end, you just gotta bend the lines to fit