Don't suppose anyone knows...

[Silverbullet]

...The taper on an MY/Brumby tie rod end? in degrees or inches per foot...

A tricky question, might have to figure it out meself. Just because I'm using an MY steering rack with L series control arms the rack ends are too short, that's okay though because 86' Camry rack ends are perfect length for this conversion...if I was still using the MY steering knuckle which I am not...tie rods different taper size on L series and MY steering knuckles Dang, MY rack end taper being about 1mm bigger diameter overall, doesn't lock into the L series hub.

If and when I can find out the taper angle it will be easy enough to buy or make a reamer and ream the L series knuckles to the correct taper. Time to break out the trigonometry

[El_Freddo]

Why not swap the rack ends from L series to MY or vice versa (opposite to what you've got now)? I'm sure the rack ends are interchangeable - you've got enough parts to play around with to check it out

Cheers

Bennie

[Silverbullet]

Alas, the L series rack ends while longer than the MY are still not long enough on the MY rack. Giving only about 2mm of thread inside the rack end when reached right out to the steering knuckle.

Some more info; the Camry rack end taper I have seem to be 15mm at the big end, 12mm at the small end and 15mm in length (the tapered section only) which ends up being 20%, 1:5 or 11.42 degrees.

[Bantum]

I'm wondering if there is any benefit in all this tinkering with the mix & match set ?

I would have thought swapping all of the components over to L series ( or Liberty ) would be more beneficial than the hassle of different combos ...
( I was just thinking it will be a bitch trying to get the right parts for this later on )

So what is the end goal your aiming for ? Is it for better off road capability ? or getting it road worthy ?
( As the amount of work that has gone into this car, I'd be afraid to take it of road )

Will be Interesting to see where you go with this ...

Cheers, Bantum ...

[Silverbullet]

I'm wondering if there is any benefit in all this tinkering with the mix & match set ?

I would have thought swapping all of the components over to L series ( or Liberty ) would be more beneficial than the hassle of different combos ...
( I was just thinking it will be a bitch trying to get the right parts for this later on )

So what is the end goal your aiming for ? Is it for better off road capability ? or getting it road worthy ?
( As the amount of work that has gone into this car, I'd be afraid to take it of road )

Will be Interesting to see where you go with this ...

Cheers, Bantum ...

Oh ye of little faith

Basically I will end up with an entire L series front end as far as suspension, brakes, gearbox, drive shafts etc. It's just that the L series steering rack is not compatible with all this in an MY vehicle. So the MY rack must be used, there's the possibility that some other rack might work (some Liberty maybe?) But I can't be bothered buying old racks trying to find one that works. There are others who have been here before (L control arm mod) found the posts on here advising the use of Camry rack ends but they all had MY steering knuckles still.

The end goal is/was to get rid of the horrific understeer this wagon had when going round sharp corners, roundabouts etc and also to make the tyres wear evenly. It won't be hard to replace things on this later on, it's all L series apart from the rack ends of course. As for off road, yeah it's getting like that as well, getting too good to scratch I do plan to have it off the beaten track sometimes but maybe not extreme bush bashing like some guys do.

Found a reamer which I think will do the job, will post results in my suspension resto thread if it all works out.

[steptoe]

that is what my camber kit is meant for

note to add to the mix it up bits thing ....a Brumby I know of runs an impreza engine cross member, guessing it has imp rack as well

bloody smart fuji engineers stopping L and MY racks being easy interchange with the end bits

[Silverbullet]

Okay so I have found the reamer, this one.

Yes, it is horrifically cheap, not even close to being HSS and comes with blunt marks already on the cutting edges (from sloppy handling at the factory I assume) but it is the right angle, and still cuts just well enough to work. A google search for my problem with the angles I need put me onto a UK forum with some poms wanting to put later model suspension gear on their Rover's or some such. Somehow the taper they needed is the same as the taper I need, one member putting out the link to reamer as above saying he's tried it and it works. And hey presto, what do you know, it works

First I tested it in a lump of aluminium at work; drill a 12mm hole, ease the reamer in with plenty of CRC as lube and it's slow going even in ally because it's cutting so much material all at once (straight flutes) Put bearing/micrometer blue on the tie rod end taper and gently put it into the hole, twist it around a few times, pull it out and there's blue contact area all the way down the hole Then tapped the tie rod into the hole and stuffed if I could pull it out after, had to knock it out with a punch from the other side, good stuff

So it should be good enough to open up 2 holes in cast iron by about 1mm, go slow, plenty of lube, lots of checking. Will post results here.

[Cliff R]

Just the thought of trigonometry makes my eyes spin.
Good luck with this and well done finding the tapered reamer.
I would have started with Blackwoods but you have found an alternative.