C5 steering rack

[Dunkah]

Hi all…. Guess what. Steering rack questions again!
I’ve been having trouble getting the correct steering rack for my car. Even the specialists and Citroen oem seem to not fit with the steering wheel angle being incorrect as discussed in plenty of posts in the forum.
My question is….. just how do you know if you need the 180° or 184° version of the rack?
My car is 2008, x7, tourer with hydro suspension and 17” wheels
If anyone can shed any light on this at all I’d be very grateful
Many thanks

[Jay-Bruce]

Because they are. Even for the same engine, some are 180 and others 184 degrees, and depends on the build date.

[Jay-Bruce]

So it looks like you can run either TBH.

[GiveMeABreak]

I'm not sure where that part quote was taken from Jay, but you cannot fit either rack. It must be the correct one for the vehicle or other otherwise you will have issues.

[GiveMeABreak]

Hi all…. Guess what. Steering rack questions again!
I’ve been having trouble getting the correct steering rack for my car. Even the specialists and Citroen oem seem to not fit with the steering wheel angle being incorrect as discussed in plenty of posts in the forum.
My question is….. just how do you know if you need the 180° or 184° version of the rack?
My car is 2008, x7, tourer with hydro suspension and 17” wheels
If anyone can shed any light on this at all I’d be very grateful
Many thanks

If you need an original, genuine part number, and can't already find the info you need on the Forum, we do ask for a membership upgrade for official parts data as we are in turn charged for this. It will cover you for future part number requests for up to 2 years, so excellent value.

If interested, links are below, then pop your VIN up.

A response to your question by a Forum Admin requiring parts or additional information requires you to have made a current contribution (£10 min.) to the Forum.

To Upgrade Your Membership & Donate Click Here For Further Information About Vehicle Parts and VIN Numbers Click Here

[Paul-R]

It boils down to what size wheels were originally fitted to the vehicle. Basically 16" or not.

viewtopic.php?t=60155&start=180

[GiveMeABreak]

Thanks Paul - I knew I had put that info up somewhere previously.

[Dunkah]

Thanks for that everyone. I have had issues already trying to fit racks which clearly aren’t correct.
With the wrong rack the steering wheel is 90° out and can’t be straightened as there’s too much thread on one end and not enough on the other side, can’t just move the wheel as it’s all on half moons not splines.
Judging by the table from th3 thread link it would appear I need the shorter travel rack.
I’ll pass this information onto my mechanic and see what happens
Thanks for now

[Dunkah]

So here’s an update, quite interesting (that is if you’re interested of course)
I currently have 2 racks out of my car, one that didn’t fit, incorrect steering wheel angle, and one that did fit and operate fine, but started leaking within a couple of months of fitting.
The one that fits is wrong for the car and the one that didn’t fit is correct for the car.
According to another thread on this topic (which I wholeheartedly trust) cars with 16” wheels a require a long travel rack and cars with 17” or over wheels require a short travel rack. 180 mm from lock to lock and 184 mm respectively.
My car has 17” wheels (and according to the vin number) it requires a short travel rack, I’ve tried 2 of these and both fitted with the steering wheel 90° out and no prospect to realign it. One of those racks was oe from Citroen
So if a long travel rack fits and works then maybe either rack will do so long as the steering pinion is set to the correct angle.
Thanks to the very kind offers from Bobins and Jay-Bruce I now have a spare rack and pinion housing which I intend to rebuild, correctly measure the steering pinion angle and modify to accept a rubber boot.
On a side note, I did today spot a little evidence that my car has been involved in an accident at some point in its history….. I noticed a coupe of paint runs on the driver side door and wing, which I really don’t think can be factory standard. I’m wondering if the accident lead to my car having a replacement steering rack and column from a donor car and hasn’t got the correct parts that correspond to its vin….
I’ll get there in the end……

[Jay-Bruce]

I'm not sure where that part quote was taken from Jay, but you cannot fit either rack. It must be the correct one for the vehicle or other otherwise you will have issues.

Hi Marc, that was actually a full quote, not a partial one: viewtopic.php?p=707676#p707676

[GiveMeABreak]

Thanks Jay no worries and thanks for pointing me back to my post. I think I was probably referring to build not build date specifically and meaning the type of wheel sizes depending on the model / engine. I'll go back and clarify that with a link to this post.

So for avoidance of doubt, I've put together this table that clarifies the type of rack fitted the C5 X7:

Wheel Diameter	Wheel 16"	Wheel 17" - 18" - 19"
Special Feature	Long Travel	Short Travel
Steering Rack Travel	92 mm x 2	90 mm x 2
Steering Rack Angle	184 °	180 °

[Paul-R]

Is it possible that the car has different wheels fitted now to that which were on when manufactured?

Looking at the rack details again, I don't understand why the steering wheel would end up upside down because the "wrong" one was fitted. Unless the long travel rack has a different steering column fitted and designed to be deliberately 180º different to the short travel assembly.

Maybe it's a case that the rack was assembled wrongly after reconditioning and it was easier to modify the steering column? Is that feasible?

[MattBLancs]

.

Maybe it's a case that the rack was assembled wrongly after reconditioning and it was easier to modify the steering column? Is that feasible?

I think that's possible would just need to be the pinion shaft clocked round a number of gear teeth relative to the rack.

I assume the steering wheel end of the column (and indeed the universal joint between pinion shaft and column) are both only able to be assembled one way?

Just trying to rule out any other reassembly error traps that could give the same symptoms!

[Sloppysod]

I assume the steering wheel end of the column (and indeed the universal joint between pinion shaft and column) are both only able to be assembled one way

I had exactly the same issue, swapped 3 racks in as many months.
Perhaps the relationship between angle sensor, universal joint and steering wheel are specific to cars fitted with 16" wheels, as the whole assembly could be lighter and therefore cheaper? We are all aware that citroen swap things around within a production run, probably changing suppliers to whoever can make it the cheapest!
It's possible that if "Dunkah's" car had a "bump" then they replaced the complete steering "set" from the donor, so as not to interfere with the airbag, big job but less technical/dangerous.

Were cars fitted with the 16" wheels very common? How many were actually sold?

[Dunkah]

I did consider that my car may have had a wheel size change, but even just going by the vin number and ignoring the wheels it ended up with an incorrect rack.
I also considered that maybe the pinion on one rack was just fitted incorrectly, however, one rack that ended up with the steering wheel 90° out was supplied by Citroen, an OEM part, ordered from my vin number, so clearly that wasnt the case.
I’ve compared two racks, one long travel and one short travel, the pinions on full lock are both on exactly the same angle and finish on exactly the same angle after the same amount of turns, but short travel moves 180 mm and long travel moves 184 mm. So….. they obviously have slightly different gear ratios at the pinion. Therefore, when the rack is dead on halfway one pinion is at a 90° angle compared to the other rack.
I’m not definitely sure my car has been crashed, but I did notice some paint anomaly and started me thinking, if the airbag has deployed then perhaps some one swapped the whole column with steering wheel from a donor.
The steering wheel to pinion angle cannot be changed as it’s all on half moons rather than splines so in my mind now that’s the only real answer to it all.
I’m now quite convinced that either rack would fit either car so long as the pinion was pulled and turned through 90°. The pinions have 8 splines so a 2 spline turn would surely do it