Xsara Rack Conversion - Dangerous?

[Masekwm 2]

I've been having a chat with a mate who works for AM, he tells me that removing PA from a PAS set up is dangerous and can lead to the steering becoming inoperative. Is this true or is he on the windup? I'm sure by now someone would have crashed? As the depas is hardly a new mod.

[dcc 855]

HA!

 

Brilliant.

[Vili 18]

I've been having a chat with a mate who works for AM, he tells me that removing PA from a PAS set up is dangerous and can lead to the steering becoming inoperative. Is this true or is he on the windup? I'm sure by now someone would have crashed? As the depas is hardly a new mod.

 

Well yes, that is true if you only remove the drive from PAS pump. In that case you have to work against the hydraulic system. If you ever have tried to steer PAS car without the engine running you know that's hard. But in the case of using Xsara rack you remove all the hydraulic parts from the steering. After that you are left with what essentially is a non assisted rack.

[Stu 18]

Well, ive had a non-pas rack on my car for the past 2 years and so far (touches wood) ive had no problems whatsoever; once the ram is removed its simply a manual rack...

[Anthony 1,003]

Strictly speaking, de-PAS'ing a rack *can* fail an MOT test and it has happened to a number of members on here

 

I can't really personally see how it could be considered dangerous though - if you plug the holes where the PAS and ram pipes would have connected so that you can't get any foreign matter inside the rack, it is to all intents and purposes a manual rack. Certainly I'm another one that's been running this setup for years and haven't yet died.

 

Any particular reason why you don't want to run PAS with the Xsara rack though?