My bus just has lots of play at the steering wheel, usual story, floats all over the road and keep needing to correct it. It's fairly bad so I need to do something with it one way or another. It's a lowered bus too so need to either raise box or fit a rack to gain more clearance.

If it needs a worm gear, that bumps the cost up significantly. Worm pegs aren't so expensive. Plus the cost of shortening the column and outer tube.

Thanks for the advice vw jim

I'm needing to decide this too. Basically everything else to do with the steering is going to be new, so just have to decide on a rack or box (tough decision! )

My steering box hasn't been used since the bus was taken off the road in the mid 90's, so I guess I should take that apart and inspect it all. If it's worn out that might make my decision for me. Pros and cons for both, might have to try making a basic price list for each as well.

Yeah that's my plan, I know my box needs attention so need to find out rough idea of cost, I love that hayburner lift kit plus the time spent doing it and weigh it up against the creative rack which I also think is a great bit of kit. Obviously whichever way I go it needs to have decent steering and more ground clearance, big decision to make here too

Here's what I've found so far, might as well put it in here for future reference.

Raised box kits:
Hayburner kit - £110 - Complete kit - includes brake arm.
Arm for kit separately - £50 - Hayburner brake arm
Khul-tek - £50 - Chassis section only
Install chassis section - £ ?
Shorten steering column - £ ?
Clearance floor - £ ?

Steering rack:
CE Kit - £850 - Steering Rack Kits
Have to cut a section of the chassis for bevel box clearance.
Horn replacement - £ ? - there was that kit available Wireless Horn but now you'd have to make something yourself, or get a button on the dash.

Does the column come up through the floor in the right spot?

There are some other places that do rack conversions, just have to try finding them.


Looks like a lot more work for the raised box and a big cost if you're not doing it yourself. I have no idea of time needed or hourly shop rates for this. Would be interesting to hear a ballpark figure, just to compare to the initial expense of the CE kit.

The CE kit looks to be more of a do-it-yourself type thing that can be done at home (compared to the box raise kit) and definitely the one to use if you're worried about going back to stock in the future.

We also have to get any mods like this certified down here, so have to take that into account.

You have to cut the cab floor too with the CE system, so the column comes up an inch or so out of position.

On mine the column was about 10mm further to the left than original. Took 2 mins with the air file.

I put a DSBUS 42mm lift section on mine a few years ago, I have never hit the steering box since the lift the bumper over riders catch first.

As for play in the steering wheel mine used to have quite a bit, got the bushes and seals from the club shop at Brighton Breeze fitted them and now no play at all.

not sure my OCD could handle that!

So I'm guessing it still attaches by the speedo in the original spot. So the whole column will be on an angle. Do you notice it?

No it's not enough to change the angle in any way you'd notice. On mine the bottom of the column is 10 mm to the left of where it used to be and obviously is in the same position at the top mount, as original. If you weren't told you wouldn't know.