Steering rack grease nipple replacement

[MorrisJohn]

I removed my old steering rack grease nipple today (as it was a 90 degree angle type) to replace it with the correct straight type. I’d ordered the replacement one from one of the good Minor specialists...

What i found was the one that came off (on right of photo) measures approx 7mm thread and the replacement one I’d been sent was approximately 9mm thread (left of photo).

Before I ring the specialist back up (it’s bank holiday weekend anyway) can anyone advise what these would be in the imperial sizes, or if this is a known issue with replacement steering racks? The rack has only done a few thousand miles. I obviously want to make sure i get the correct size straight one to go on for ease of lubricating I future.

[JOWETTJAVELIN]

I have one here you can have.

[MorrisJohn]

Thank you. Much appreciated. I’ll PM you.

[MorrisJohn]

Just a big thank you to JowettJavelin for this. It has now been fitted to the car and the steering rack is lubricated.

If anyone reading this happens to know what size this nipple is known as it would be good to know for future reference? It seems uncommon and I couldn’t find it on any conversion charts.

I have one here you can have.

[philthehill]

For future reference:
The size of the thread in the rack body is 5/16" x 22 TPI BSF parallel. The thread of the grease nipple is 5/16" x 22 TPI BSF with a slight taper.
The above threads/dimensions have been checked against those fitted/found to be installed in a genuine BMC Morris Minor steering rack.

Aftermarket steering racks may have different threads/grease nipples fitted.

The nipples originally fitted to the steering rack were oil nipples and not grease nipples. Oil nipples have a different form of nipple head. Oil guns have a different form of head to suit the oil nipple..

You can add extra nipples to the pinion end of the rack to enable better lubrication throughout the rack as shown in the photo below - use the search facility for details of adding the additional grease nipples. The additional grease nipples can be accessed via the O/S wheel arch.

steering rack mod 1.JPG (1.6 MiB) Viewed 527 times

[MorrisJohn]

Thank you once again Phil for sharing your expertise. I’ll give consideration to adding additional nipples in future.