Questions from today's mot?

[leggattr]

I got 1 advisory that I think I can do myself so thought I'd post it up to see how easy it is to fix. Also one other question.

The advisory was "play in steering rack inner joints". Kwik fit quoted £70 per side to do.
Is it a difficult task to sort or best leaving to professionals?

The other was a high co level. It was passable but my concern is it could get worse over the year. Now my weber 32/34 on the 1.3 had a rebuild in November and i used carb cleaner on it monday. The head gasket replaced at the same time. But Iv noticed the Coolant has oil in but not real noticeable loss of power. Could oil or water burning through the exhaust raise this reading?

I'm looking at another head gasket and skim (wasn't done previous) before the end of the year anyway so hoping to solve this issue. Another sign is the oil breather smoking and clogging with cheese!

Comments welcome
Richard

[thespannerman]

Iv just priced a new rack for mine. 17 quid plus vat but thats with a bit of trade discount as well. Easy enough to fit though

[shaunboy84]

where did u get the rack from ? does it come with bushes as i am needing both

[thespannerman]

Will be ordering mine from a local motorfactors. I know you can get poly type bushes on ebay but not sure about standard ones

[Iain]

My motorfactors (Sutton, parts of ByPartsBy) do a rack for something like £25 exchange. Changing the rack is better/probably easier than just changing one of the arms. Possibly get new track rod ends while you're there (£5 each). It's easily doable for a component DIYer.

Possible that oil has contaminated the water during the headgasket change so I'd flush it out and check if it gets any worse first.

[mk1nova_rich]

Once the track rod ends are split from the steering knuckles its only a 13mm bolt to separate the column from the rack and then four 13mm nuts to undo the bulkhead clamps and slide the rack out through the inner wing (remove wheel first)

Probably slightly easier than just changing the track rods and only a 13mm spanner/ratchet is required, plus you know the complete rack is then in good health

[leggattr]

Are the non gm refurbed racks ok then? Was just looking at keeping the original rack and sourcing original parts to fix it.

[Iain]

Yes they're fine

[ash 1.3 sr]

If your oil breather is smoking your crankcase could be pressurising mine did same 2 dead pistons where the culprit