steering rack play

[budgerian]

Hello to all,

I am new to this forum, having just required a beautiful 1984 red HPE VX. It's in excellent condition and it's my daily driver. It's my fifth Lancia, it replaced my 2000 HF coupe.

I have also asked the following question on the betaboyz forum, but I need all the info I can get, so I'll ask here as well:

I seem to have too much play in the ZF power assisted steering rack in my HPE VX.
When I wiggle the front wheels from left to right I can clearly see unwanted forward and backward movement in the center of the rack. Obviously this makes the car a little more unpredictable and stable then it should be.

Can this be fixed without replacing the entire rack? If so how?
Is the bush that beta boys sell only for the TRW rack, or for my ZF rack? What is it's function?

I have not yet looked at the internals of the rack, so I have no idea what causes the play.
All I know is that there is no play in the track rod ends and no play whatsoever in the steering column.

Any help or advise will be deeply appreciated.

Roger

[Charley]

I believe the rack bushing Beta Boyz has listed is for manual racks only.The bushing is installed about six inches down in the rack tube at the far end of the gear to keep the rack centered in the tube.When they wear out they seem to disintegrate and the rack will bounce off the tube inside when you drive over bumps.Very annoying. I am not sure if ZF PS racks are similar.
I believe this same bushing was used in other manual racks like a Fiat 124 Coupe.