[Ian21401]

During my enquiries locally I was advised that there are three different makes of rack fitted to the 940 during it's build life, one of which is a "TRW" make. I had cleaned my rack and found the following cast into the pinion housing casting, " Volvo, 34 005 072, 1687501, TRW". My main dealer did a search on those details but advised that they were not recorded in their database.
It appears that a previous someone had attempted to remove the oil pipes as the unions into the pinion casting were well chewed up. I was forced to cut the pipes next to the union and resort to my "easy out twist sockets" to remove the unions. I was concerned that they may shear off but all was well.
The original pipes are steel but the local firm copied the pipes in cunifer. He did not have any very short unions identical to the original ones so used slightly longer ones. ( The original ones are total length 15.5 mms ) He also had to re-use the very small "O" rings from the original pipes. We didn't think that this would be as issue, but I found that it was. The original pipes, at the pinion end, are bent through a very small radius 180 degrees immediately after leaving the union. The new pattern pipes were bent through 180 degrees but the longer unions caused the bend to be in the wrong place. I fitted the pipes to the rack with the minimum amount of re-bending but when attempting to refit the rack to the car the new pipes were fouling the chassis cross member.
The pipes were returned to the supplier who made up another set having shortened the unions to the same as the originals and struggled to replicate the small radius 180 degree bends. These pipes were refitted to the rack and the rack installed in the cross member. The banjo unions were re-attached with new copper washers and the system refilled and the steering moved lock to lock to purge the system. The system purged easily but the steering wheel was fouling the column switch shroud, something which it hadn't done before, and was stiff to turn.
When initially removing the rack from the car the lower universal coupling had been very difficult to move. I had removed both clamping bolts completely lest they were similar to cotter pins and were located through a cut out section of the pinion and/or column. (It transpired that they were not, so it was not necessary to remove them completely.) I was forced to carefully drift the coupling off the pinion (which is splined ) onto the column (which has a squared section) with ever increasing force until it moved. As the steering wheel had not been fouling the shrouds prior to this I wondered whether I had damaged something during that process. I removed the panel from beneath the column to check the column. All appeared to be in order. The collapsible section on my car is in the form of a concertina type steel tube which is part of the column, not a separate coupling, and is located near the top of the column just down from the switches etc. I disconnected the bottom of the column from the rack pinion (the coupling was easily moved by hand this time ) and found that with the bottom of the column disconnected the steering wheel was still fouling the shrouds but it was possible to pull the wheel towards me about 2 or 3 mms. This cured the fouling and the stiffness. But when I released the wheel it returned to the lower position. I decided to re-attach the lower coupling to the column and pinion but only clamp it onto the column. I then levered the coupling up the pinion and tightened the clamp bolt. It took three attempts to get it right but it does appear to have solved the problem.