Steering Rack Gaiters

[RodR]

My Sprint just passed her MOT, it originally only failed on a split o/s steering gaiter . I sourced replacement gaiters from Fitchetts, who as usual quickly dispatched them. When I went to fit the o/s gaiter I noticed it was a lot larger than the split original one. You can see from the photo that the gaiter now fouls the lower wishbone mount and I can’t imagine it will last long fretting against the suspension.

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Has anyone else had this problem or used alternative sources? Fitchetts said they order and sell loads of these and have had no reported problems and could only suggest extending the bellow, which doesn’t work as it would over extend when turning left and wouldn’t help the clearance anyway. The new bellow is about 15mm wider than the original, you can see the old o/s and new n/s gaiters together (the new o/s one had been fitted before I thought about photographing the two).

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[Jon Tilson]

I'd suggest that in the pics you have the car has front wheels off the ground and dangling. When its sitting on the road the gaiters will clear.

You can move the rack back slightly as it will move on the slotted holes in the sub frame, but only about 1/8 inch, but every little helps.

Jonners

[RodR]

You are right that the photos were taken with it jacked up and the wheel off. It is tough to get a good photo with her sitting down, this is the best I could get.

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It is certainly better with the wheels on the ground, but the gaiter does still sit fairly tightly against the mount, I didn’t think about trying to slide the rack back – I’ll give that a go - thanks.

Still think it would be better if replacements at least tried to match the original’s dimensions.

[Richard the old one]

I have to agree with you RodR the original gaitors were slightly smaller in diameter than the ones that are now available.

[Carledo]

I have just had exactly the same thing on the Carledo. My gaiters came not from Fitchetts but from a respected supplier on E-bay and were sold as for Herald/Spitfire/Dolomite range and were QH. Like you I fitted them whilst realising their lifespan is going to be restricted. I have alloy rack mounts which do not permit any adjustment and the universal gaiter I fitted last year destroyed itself in very short order though not for the same reason. I think what is happening here is QH (and possibly others) are marking up their gaiters for Dolly as well because the racks are almost identical so they must fit right? However Heralds and Spits do not have the same large chunks of metal in the way! I remember original Stanpart gaiters for Heralds etc were fat like that, presumably the genuine Dolly ones were thinner to take clearance into account. Good luck to both of us in trying to get the correct ones, but it might be worth giving Fitchetts a bell and explaining the problem as the ones you got may have been wrongly boxed or some other error. Suppliers only usually send what the book says but the book or the original manufacturer is not always correct! Steve
BTW the "universal" gaiter I originally used failed because it was simply not long enough to cope with the distances generated by our cars fantastic turning circle! You have been warned!