Audi UR Quattro Rally Build

3 minute(s) of a 357 minute read

More Power! (steering)

We may have mentioned, some time ago now, that our engine packaging approach left us without power steering and that we planned to solve this issue by installing an electric power steering pump from a Volvo. Well we recently got around to actually installing it.

This is our pump:

And we need to install it behind the radiator which, in these cars, is off to the side of the engine not in front of it, where there is a surprising amount of room. As it’s going to sit above the left engine mount we hit upon the idea of supporting it vertically on stilts cunningly fashioned from threaded rod and bracing it off the inner fender with some sort of bracket arrangement. The pump gives a savage kick when starting and weighs quite a lot so there are some serious forces to be controlled.

We procured some OE Volvo bushings and said threaded rod and starting mocking things up.

Then we thought “This might have legs” and carried on with trying to brace it from the inner fender. At first we tried one arm that we thought we’d bolt to the fender or chassis leg.

But we soon realised the twisting forces this thing develops would easily overwhelm this so we mocked up what might be considered more of a cradle and figured out ways to attach that to the inner fender.

This was obviously much better so we committed it to metal and forged ahead with figuring out the attachment points.

We soon realised that our cradle would interfere with one of the oil line fittings so we cut a slot out and bridged it with a bend.

Job done. We only hope it works.