Title: espace 2 j63 steering
Post by: Tim Hamnett on April 04, 2016, 11:51:31 am
Hello everyone,
I am the lucky? owner of an Espace 2 TD.
I only bought it as a temporary while repairing our main vehicle.
Well four months on and I'm still repairing, and the Espace has now failed its MOT.
My problem is the steering rack. It failed on a leaky seal on the pinion shaft which seems quite common.
I bought a seal kit and replaced the top and bottom pinion seals but left the rest of the rack alone.
I am about to take the rack off for the third time because it simply wont work. the first time after bleeding it would hydraulicly lock when turned. If you backed of it would turn but then lock again.
My fuzzy logic said that I must have transposed the two cylinder hard lines leading to power hindered steering. The lines will go on either way even though the first way I fitted the looked more right if you know what I mean. so I swapped them over bled the system again checked the pump flow etc, etc, but now no power assistance.
I have Since found the image of the rack I was using as a reference seems to be a reversed picture of a left hand drive rack used to ilustrate a right hand drive item (comedy of errors).
Weeks have past since I first dismantled it, (partly because the French supplier of the mounting rubber I also needed refused to ship to the UK) and I am now begining to doubt pretty much everything I've touched.
To carry on I either need a propper exploded diagram of the steering or a replacement good rack.
Which leads to another question. The racks listed for a J63 are horrendously expensive, more than I paid for the car. But R25 racks do appear at least to be the same and possibly others from the same era are too, and at a fraction of the price!
Has anyone looked into this or have any further knowledge?
Any help would be hugely apperciated.
Ta,
Tim.
I am the lucky? owner of an Espace 2 TD.
I only bought it as a temporary while repairing our main vehicle.
Well four months on and I'm still repairing, and the Espace has now failed its MOT.
My problem is the steering rack. It failed on a leaky seal on the pinion shaft which seems quite common.
I bought a seal kit and replaced the top and bottom pinion seals but left the rest of the rack alone.
I am about to take the rack off for the third time because it simply wont work. the first time after bleeding it would hydraulicly lock when turned. If you backed of it would turn but then lock again.
My fuzzy logic said that I must have transposed the two cylinder hard lines leading to power hindered steering. The lines will go on either way even though the first way I fitted the looked more right if you know what I mean. so I swapped them over bled the system again checked the pump flow etc, etc, but now no power assistance.
I have Since found the image of the rack I was using as a reference seems to be a reversed picture of a left hand drive rack used to ilustrate a right hand drive item (comedy of errors).
Weeks have past since I first dismantled it, (partly because the French supplier of the mounting rubber I also needed refused to ship to the UK) and I am now begining to doubt pretty much everything I've touched.
To carry on I either need a propper exploded diagram of the steering or a replacement good rack.
Which leads to another question. The racks listed for a J63 are horrendously expensive, more than I paid for the car. But R25 racks do appear at least to be the same and possibly others from the same era are too, and at a fraction of the price!
Has anyone looked into this or have any further knowledge?
Any help would be hugely apperciated.
Ta,
Tim.
Title: Re: espace 2 j63 steering
Post by: renaultsan on April 04, 2016, 08:24:50 pm
I do not know what year your Esp[ace is but I just looked on e-bay and there are quite a few there from 40 quid for second hand up tp 115 for recons.
The Renault 25 stopped production in 1992 and comparing ours (we have 3) the racks do not appear to be the same
The Renault 25 stopped production in 1992 and comparing ours (we have 3) the racks do not appear to be the same
Title: Re: espace 2 j63 steering
Post by: BrianM on April 04, 2016, 08:36:57 pm
Hi Tim, welcome to the forum. Nice first post.
I do feel for you, been there, done that, had problems, grrr!
Sorry I cant help with the rack, may be worth a call to a recon company with your tale of woh!
They may be happy to give advice.
Have you had a look at the docs. in the vault http://www.matrasport.dk/Cars/Espace/vault/J63/
Would be a shame to have to buy a rack after all that work. Maybe you have a valve in the wrong place?
Best of luck.
Brian
I do feel for you, been there, done that, had problems, grrr!
Sorry I cant help with the rack, may be worth a call to a recon company with your tale of woh!
They may be happy to give advice.
Have you had a look at the docs. in the vault http://www.matrasport.dk/Cars/Espace/vault/J63/
Would be a shame to have to buy a rack after all that work. Maybe you have a valve in the wrong place?
Best of luck.
Brian
Title: Re: espace 2 j63 steering
Post by: renaultsan on April 05, 2016, 03:39:14 pm
Try this link for your rack
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=renault+espace+steering+rack&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xrenault+espace+j63++steering+rack.TRS0&_nkw=renault+espace+j63++steering+rack&_sacat=0
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=renault+espace+steering+rack&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xrenault+espace+j63++steering+rack.TRS0&_nkw=renault+espace+j63++steering+rack&_sacat=0
Title: Re: espace 2 j63 steering
Post by: Tim Hamnett on April 21, 2016, 11:11:54 am
Hello again and thanks for all the replies. I'd forgotten to turn on notifications for my own post!
The steering is now happy.
I decided to go back to the begining and dismantled the rack again. The valve is a simple enough mechanism once you understand it, but it took most of a day staring at it (with mumerous interuptions from 5 year old twins on holiday and seriously bored because Dads spending all his time shouting at bits of metal on the kitchen table) before it clicked. I had indeed put the valve on 180 degrees out. A photograph when initialy dismantleing would have saved an awfull lot of time, effort and frustration.
I now consider myself an Mk 2 Espace steering rack expert and can remove and replace one in a fraction of the time it took for the first go.
Unfortunately I now have another impossible problem that reared its head with the MOT retest!!
I think I should put it in a new post.
The steering is now happy.
I decided to go back to the begining and dismantled the rack again. The valve is a simple enough mechanism once you understand it, but it took most of a day staring at it (with mumerous interuptions from 5 year old twins on holiday and seriously bored because Dads spending all his time shouting at bits of metal on the kitchen table) before it clicked. I had indeed put the valve on 180 degrees out. A photograph when initialy dismantleing would have saved an awfull lot of time, effort and frustration.
I now consider myself an Mk 2 Espace steering rack expert and can remove and replace one in a fraction of the time it took for the first go.
Unfortunately I now have another impossible problem that reared its head with the MOT retest!!
I think I should put it in a new post.
