well escorts have racks, so if he used or replicated an Escort front end in the Datto, that would probably be a decent solution. plus you can get quick racks for eskies too.

DAT383 is a drag car. so steering geometry probably isn't his biggest concern. it may be done very well though, there's a fair bit of engineering in that car from what I've seen.

I'm not saying it isn't possible, just not really feasible for a road car.

Some bloke who's just done it himself because he doesn't like to listen to people who know better telling him it isn't the best idea - chances are its geometry is all over the place.

When people who do this stuff for a living on race cars and know about steering geometry and setup tell you it will be very difficult to get even acceptable geometry in the confined space on a road going 1200 with CA in it, with numerous attempts at modifying steering arms to rectify the issues... all that labour is going to add up. As I said it really isn't feasible. And that's assuming you can even find a rack the right width in the first place - near enough really isn't good enough.

but feel free to disregard knowledgeable opinion and just bung it together yourself and hope for the best.

for a race car, or performance road use, a slightly vague steering box with decent geometry will be a much better solution than a nice tight steering rack with poor geometry.

Dodgy conversion? You didn't even see it. It was nice work, he even lined up the new linkage in the same plane as the original linkage. DAT383 did a rack conversion, as did someone using Escort struts on a B110 circuit car. I haven't heard much about how those turned out.

If my choice is 35-year old worn out gearbox or an "some-say-it-can't-be-done" conversion, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. Just because some race car builders have found a great solution doesn't mean it is the only way, or that it's not good for a street car.

They might also tell you that Nissan's original B110 steering gearbox solution isn't great for a circuit car. But it works well enough for most of us.

tube chassis drag cars probably don't care all that much about steering geometry. And they're probably making thier own racks, or can source custom racks to suit specific purposes/fitments.

I'm talking about circuit racing chassis builders. I don't think you'll find too many spaceframe chassis circuit cars using anything other than rack and pinion. worm and recirculating ball steering boxes just don't cut it. these guys have experience in building cars from scratch and making them go around corners. If they say its not feasible - it isn't.

a dodgy backyard conversion from a bloke more interested in doing than talking (and presumably listening) is highly unlikely to be a very good installation. sure it might be fitted securely and actually turn the wheels, but physically making it fit and connecting it to the wheels isn't such a big trick, but there's alot more to it than that. things like bump steer and ackermann.

Did you talk to any builders that do rack and pinion, or only builder that don't? Many tube-chassis drag cars use rack & pinion, it is a very common and popular kit.

I only know personally one guy that did this for a road Datsun. Everybody said it was very difficult. But he just did it and it was simple, I saw the work. He reports that it works well, much better than the stock setup. He has a Datsun 510. He said he used one off a small Datsun. It may have been a B11, but he didn't remember. He was more interested in doing than in talking.

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gee sounds easy... just use any old rack you can get your hands on, bung it in anywhere it fits and bob's your uncle!

I guess the engineers I spoke to at 3 different workshops that specialise in building race cars from production based vehicles to space frame cars with bespoke suspension and steering don't know what they're on about.

I will try and find out what is the price of "new" ones. The place where I buy sells wrecked bakkie parts.
The bakkies can be anything from 2005 to 2008 models with any km on the clock.
The more km's the cheaper the item.
I tend to go for 35000km items because they are still quite new and afordable.
Example my bakkie suspention is 2005 model and 35000km on the clock. was still clean like new ones.

there's a B11 sentra / sunny manual rack & pinion, used to be able to order them pretty easily, though it was $$$ My B11 paddock basher had a very expensive manual rack swapped in mostly because it felt nicer to drive and didn't leak everywhere after rallying.

Wonder if those would work...

Do the B110 and B210 boxes have different bolt pattern? I dunno. Can somebody post a picture of a B210 box?

Rack and Pinion is pretty easy to fit. Need to weld a couple brackets, cut/thread or cut/weld the rack ends, and fit up a flex column (use a B310 column). Aftermarket makes small units, or you can use a Mini rack. Or a Datsun rack.

<-- wiki clicky for more details

The steering box ratio in 1000's & 1200's is 15 to 1 while the 120Y & Sunny [B310] ratio is 16.4 to 1, so I presume that the helix on the worm is different.

I have no idea if the tooth angle on the ball nut & sector is different, but the 1200 uses a steering column as part of the worm while the 120Y & Sunny use a short splined shaft that has a fabric type universal joint on it.

This means that even if you can get a 120Y worm [complete with matching ball nut] into the 1200 steering box, you still need to change the column to one that connects up with this universal joint.
If this looks like being a workable solution, then you would also need the top cover from the 120Y steering box too. [where the worm shaft comes through]

I've not compared the 1200 & 120Y steering boxes, but I suspect that the steering box housings will not interchange between the two chassis.

Perhaps somebidy can confirm or refute this.

if you can get them from africa new i would be after one . i have a ca18 in my 1200 ute and the steering is way too sloppy

i have ajusted my to the max .

edit so 120y ones ARE the same ? hmm looks like the daily might be getting hit up for a swap