Hi,

I have a M59 Berlingo (right hand drive) with Power Steering and I'd like to know if there are manual racks and if someone has one might be able to tell me what they think about its feel compared to P/Steer.

The reason for the thinking of changing is I am converting the Berlingo to full electric and I am trying to decrease any electric driven accessories where possible.

Just so you know Berlingo is hydraulic steering rack. As for any manual racks available? I'm not sure maybe from other cars but I doubt it. On my track car what I've done is I got rid of the belt, changed it to shorter style, removed the steering pump and drained all the fluids, this immediately made it far lighter than most people think leaking power steering racks feel.
Over all the road feel improved a lot and so did the self centering when drifting.
I'm throwing this info at you in case you can't find non PAS racks and want to just run the standard without fluids.

p.s Don't block the holes so air can escape instead of creating pressure and also grease it regularly.

Good info thanks... in my Opel Kadett GSi rally car I smashed off the pump on a crossing and we just ran the hi and low pressure hoses through a small reservoir because I wasn't sure... Now it has electric PSU.

Good to know the rack runs without oil that maybe my option.

Good luck with your project.

What kind of mileage are you hoping to get?

(20-08-2014, 03:34 PM)homeruk Wrote:  Good luck with your project.

What kind of mileage are you hoping to get?

Thanks

100km or 60mile range... the numbers worked out to 115km I believe but really till I build the car this is theory.

(20-08-2014, 01:35 AM)Kokain Wrote:  Just so you know Berlingo is hydraulic steering rack. As for any manual racks available? I'm not sure maybe from other cars but I doubt it. On my track car what I've done is I got rid of the belt, changed it to shorter style, removed the steering pump and drained all the fluids, this immediately made it far lighter than most people think leaking power steering racks feel.
Over all the road feel improved a lot and so did the self centering when drifting.
I'm throwing this info at you in case you can't find non PAS racks and want to just run the standard without fluids.

p.s Don't block the holes so air can escape instead of creating pressure and also grease it regularly.

Kokain,

Just want to clarify your mod.

Did you remove the Ram from the rack or just leave it in-place and removed the oil only?

I didn't realize the steering rack has the ram on the outside which now makes sense why it possible just works.

The Opel rack has the ram inside or integrated which is why we thought it would fail or feel "loose" without oil in the rams... any way I think I could remove the ram and replace it with a steering damper some manual steering racks have.

Hey Anthony, just saw this topic again and came back to reply. I'm not sure what you mean by RAM, give me some more info or pictures. Also just so you know the power steering is still on my Berlingo, I may consider removing it one day when it fails but I want this car to be driven by other people when necessary.

The Power steering rack I have is setup with a hydraulic ram bolted to the back of the rack that assists the steering effort needed to steer the car. So effectively this is a manual rack with hydraulic ram assistance.

[Image: IMG_2072.JPG]

So my question was "Did you remove the Ram from the rack or just leave it in-place and removed the oil only?" with the ram being the hydraulic ram pictured.

My thinking was to possibly remove the ram and replace it with a steering rack damper similar to this one.

[Image: steering_damper.jpg]

The damper is just there to help soak up the bumps and not much else... not something you need on a race car.

It's worth noting that removing power steering "could" be an MOT fail if you get an awkward tester.

Under part 3a in section 2.3 of the M.O.T. tester's manual, a fail will be given for the following reason: "Power steering malfunctioning or inoperative or evidence that power assistance has been removed or disconnected, when it is known that power steering is standard on the vehicle"

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(24-08-2014, 09:45 AM)stuartinlancashire Wrote:  It's worth noting that removing power steering "could" be an MOT fail if you get an awkward tester.

Under part 3a in section 2.3 of the M.O.T. tester's manual, a fail will be given for the following reason: "Power steering malfunctioning or inoperative or evidence that power assistance has been removed or disconnected, when it is known that power steering is standard on the vehicle"

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You seem to be missing the point of my post.

The reason I posted here was to try to see if anyone has a Berlingo without power steering. There seems to be listed manual power steering racks but again I am not sure if Citroen released a berlingo with a manual rack or the maual rack is for other Citroens and happens to fit the Berlingo. As for MOT I dont live in the UK and Given this is a full electric conversion everything will have to be "engineered" and passed to have road registration.