Solution
The specifications in the racing car steering gear are met at various points by
iglidur plain bearings. They are used in such applications as aligning the rack and allowing axial sliding with less rotation.
Particular attention was paid to dimensioning the seat and machining the shaft, to ensure locking friction is sufficient to prevent the seat from breaking away. The bearings must be carefully calibrated and surface treated to avoid sliding friction and prevent seizure. The outermost yellow pair (Fig. 1) must absorb the off-axis forces transmitted by the forks connected to the steering rods, while the innermost blue pair must withstand the shear pressure generated between the rack and pinion. Figure 2 shows two more bearings that house the pinion: In this case, flanged bearings are used (coloured magenta here) to allow the pinion to rotate. The washers, coloured green here, are also useful; they are used as a spacer to prevent wear to the two magenta bearings that would otherwise come into contact with the sharp edges of the teeth.