"Roger" wrote in message
k...
The steering on my 15 year old lawnmower (Murray 10/30) jammed
yesterday. It was a bit awkward to dismantle but I got it apart
eventually after much cursing.

The rack and pinion are both warn but the basic problem is the plastic
bearing that locates the pinion with respect to the rack. A quick visit
to my local lawnmower emporium led to the information that the machine
is obsolete and parts are not available. After much heart searching I
weakened and bought a second hand replacement but it seems a shame to
throw away the defective mower when the defect is so small.

An Internet search after the event produced sellers in the USA asking $2
or thereabouts for the part in question and $50+ to ship to the UK. No
UK suppliers though.

The bearing is little more than a flanged bush and the approximate
dimensions a

Bearing width 5/16" of which 1/16" is the flange
Bore diameter 5/8"
O/D 3/4"
Flange O/D 1"

I have toyed with the idea of cutting off the flange and replacing the
rest with a 1/4" wide strip of copper cut from a 15mm pipe but this
seems a bit too much of a bodge even if the join in the strip is
diagonal and soldered. Apart from anything else I am not sure a solder
joint would hold and I am not convinced that copper/steel is a
reasonable unlubricated bearing surface.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make a replacement from
plastic and what sort of object to start from?

You'd do better posting this to uk.rec.models.engineering. Anyway what you
need is a bronze bush or preferably Oilite which self lubricates from oil
retained in its pores. However it's not like this is a critical bit of high
tech machinery and as long as you gave it some grease or oil every now and
then you'd get away with a variety of materials.