Lancia Motor Club

Standard are rubber bushes of course which are OK when first fitted but soon wear giving rise to excessive play in the steering.    This time I got fed up and did a little research.    Turns out that rose joint type rod ends are available and cheap.   The most suitable screw onto M14 screwed rod and have 14mm centres which fit the standard pins.    The steering arm will hold astandard spherical bearing which fits nicely the standard 12mm pin.  The ends are a llittle less tall (19mm) than the bushes (28mm) so I needed to cut some spacers from old bush inners and I made a new pin for the left hand side taking the opportunity to incorporate shoulders to take up some of the space and so need only one spacer.     14mm screwed rod is a bit whippy so I enclosed the track rod in steel tubing (actually a broken 2CV steering column!) and usd part of the original for the drop arm.   Adjustment is taken care of by left/right handed turnbuckles and appropriate rod ends.   Everything supplied overnight and free postage from http://www.mcgillmotorsport.com/
The result is a transformation!    All play (apart from a few degrees I have left in the steering box) is gone and steering is now ultra precise.  It also seems lighter, as light as power assisted steering.   I love my Aprilia even more now.

Brilliant!!!

You can also get some rubber boots to cover Rose Joints that will significantly increase their lifespan. Crud will get caught in all that grease and will start wear quicker than you think. Will need some disassembly to fit now mind.
Guy

I was wondering about that and have the idea to make some boots out of leather as I am not sure that rubber ones will fit in?    The thick grease is decidedly a temporay measure!

The boots are skin tight (almost) and tricky to fit but worth it.

You feed the male end of the boot through the body of the boot and out the exit hole, if it's a little tight slipping the boot over the body of the joint try using an old (blunt) spoon head slipped into the the boot as a guide/lever.
Guy

When I restored my B20 many years ago I wanted to do the same and fit rose-joints, at least at the end of the ends of track rod and I bought the joints to do it. However, I was advised by a well know Aurelia expert with lots of racing experience not to go ahead. The reasoning being, as I recall, was that the relative stiffness and ‘give’ in the original silent-bloc bushes was part of the set up of the front suspension and taking out the ‘give’ would put too great a stress on other components with the risk of track rod failure. I stayed with the rubber silent-bloc bushes.

Colin

Bernie Fisher did this mod for me.  Again it felt like power steering.  I think its still on the car 20 years on after some very hard use with Jason and Louise. 

Yes, I've found them on the website and ordered them.  They will be here tomorrow.
I cannot see that the track rod is going to fail.   It is at least as robust as any modern one and is under far less strain than a modern fwd car with big fat tyres!     I think they used rubber because nothing much else was available?  In any case. Lambdas use ball joints with tubular track rods and they are not known to fail.

I agree with Colin,
The main reason the Rubber one fail is fitter`s tighten the nuts on the Silent Blocks at full lock (or not straight ahead) so when the wheels are put in the straight position the Blocks are over streched so fail.According to "Harry" It must be "in repose"
The small block on the drop arm does work out of it`s limits and fails, the 2nd series had a ball joint.
John

The Silentbloc`s are ok for the job.
The added advantage is when installed correctly, the steering returns to the the straight position due to the Bushes unwinding.(caster and camber also helps)
Millions of cars have Silentbloc`s on anti roll bars, they only fail, when people tighten up when the car is jacked up. Off the jack the Blocks are over streched.
John

The way this post is developing, it reminds me of quite a lot of others in the sense in that later so-called  improvements can lead to a whole new set of problems and that what was done 'back in the day' was done for a reason.
This is probably why after nearly 50 years of continuous Lancia ownership, I have gone full circle and find myself promoting originality more and more in old cars, particularly Lancia - assuming of course that the original set-up is done properly.
Chris 

I have always tightened up the silentblocs in the straight ahead position and I agree that the track rod ends last longer but they still fail in the end.   I have no problem with the new setup returning to straight ahead, that should be a matter of steering geometry and does not need built in spring action!      Perhaps that is why the rose joints make the steering feel so much lighter though.    There is no doubt that, to me at least, the steering feels more precise than with new silentblocs.     I have no problem with making use of modern technology when it improves safety, so I have fitted seat belts and flashing indicators to all my Lancias for instance and upgraded the Fulvia headlights to 100/80 watt quartz-iodide bulbs and installed brighter led headlight and side light bulbs in the Lambdas which incidentally eases the pressure on the dynamo.  I am working on fitting a 12v alternator to the Aprilia so as to get decent headlights there too.