Triumph Repair: 1976 Spitfire Steering Rack, Spitfire, turning radius

Question
Hi Jim,
Hope you can help me as I have now dismantled the steering rack several times and the same promblem occures. The car is completely in rebuild stage and I thought of cleaning and greased the steering rack as everything is so easy to get at. After replacing the rack and attaching the tie rods, the wheels could be turned WAY past their proper turning points. Dismantled it again and found that a spacer washer was not put into the top plug on the rack(has grease nipple, large screw down plug, spacers, spring, spacer washer and a bit that holds the inner sliding column in place). Everything seemed to now stop at the proper place until I applied pressure to the wheels. There was a slight hesitation and then it went completely on to the extreme turning radius again. I'm obviously missing something but don't know what now. Any ideas???

Thanks Tom

Answer
Tom,

Not sure how you define "extreme turning radius"...  

Triumph was quite proud that the Spitfire had the smallest turning radius of any car at the time it was produced. I believe that distinction still stands.  It does mean that in full lock turns the inner tire tends to get dragged sideways on the ground.

That's how it was designed.

Cheers,

Jim