I've been suffering from a severe case of the man-flu for the past week so haven't done much on the build...
I managed to brave a few hours in the garage today though and have (possibly) finalised my steering design.
After lots of playing around I've decided to keep it much the same as my first attempt, but have managed to drop the height of the steering wheel by an inch or so. Ideally I would have liked it lower still (and possibly a couple of inches futher forward) but I can't easily acheive that without cutting a big hole in TR9, or going above TR8 which would mean taking a rather tortuous path through the engine bay.
So basically all I've done is cut the top rail of my column support off and welded a new one in slightly lower, getting rid of the gap I had previously left between TR9 and the column, so the column just touches it.
Whilst I was at it I also added a little plate to TR9 so I can bolt a 38mm exhaust clamp to it to add additional support for the column (I shamlessly nicked this idea from Westfield who do something similar on their MX5 based 7):
I've been wondering for a while how to link the mazda column to the escort rack and had a bit of a brainwave this weekend. It's possibly a silly idea, and a waste of a perfectly good sierra column, but...
I started off with the MX5 steering rack linkage, which I cut down on one end:
I then dug out a Sierra colmn I had lying around, chopped it in half and mated the two together:
So the Mazda end mates with the lower part of the MX5 column, and the Ford end mates with the steering rack using one of RallyDesign's Sierra-to-escort linkages:
It all seems to fit nicely, and feels great watching the rack move when I turn the steering wheel. Can't wait to get it rolling now!