Relay nice.

After managing to extract the steering relay from the chassis sometime ago it was time to give it the TLC it deserved to keep it going strong and avoid the shame of being replaced by a pattern part.

With due reference to the Green Bible it came apart pretty easily although the ancient oil was very thin, very black and plentiful. It left the place smelling like Bovington tank museum for days.

It a wonderfully efficient design with the spring energised taper bushes, but it does rather rely upon one pretty simple seal at the bottom to keep the oil in. This in turn relies on the shaft to be in top form. It gets a lot of abuse and so it wasn’t surprising there was a worn groove in the shaft. I decided to replace the shaft as I had found a NOS one but I suppose this one could have been turned the other way up, although that may have let water in.

Bushes are a readily available service item and the Green Bible gives a minimum length for the spring, which mine was just under. These are also easily obtained. I reckon if someone got a decent quality shaft made they could do a good job of refurbishing relays …..

With the appropriate tool and following the Green Bible it all went together quite easily. It is quite nerve wracking compressing the spring when you have to be in the firing line. I am not sure how you could do it without the tool.

The most time consuming part was filling it was EP90, which is thick and slow to get in. I did it without the seal cap in place and filled it to the brim, left it to settle repeatedly over about 1 hour. When installed you need to add oil via one of the crew holes and have another out as vent.

It slotted into the chassis nicely with some grease for good measure, but I hope never to have to remove it again. I left it about a week before bolting it in and adding the retaining plate just to make sure it wasn’t leaking. So far so good.