Steering rack troubleshooting

[nonstop23]

All;

I have a MK1 with a steering rack of the same; recently while out and about with the car I tried turning left and the steering wheel bound up so I had to "muscle" the car to continue making the turn. This was also accompanied by a "clonk" from underneath. Any ideas what it might be? I'm assuming the best thing to do is drop the frame & pull the rack for R&R. Trouble is, are there still parts available - I'm in the USA and seems all the Mini sites here do not have much information on the racks and parts. Would like to buy new but don't have the $$$.
Thanks in advance,
Andy

[Alex]

Whereabouts in the US are you ?
Without seeing it, there could be a multitude of things wrong with it, from the simple fix to the terminally broken. If your Mk1 is hydrolastic, getting the rack out can be tricky.

Sensibly priced racks will be available at MME in Dayton OH at the end of the month.

[nonstop23]

Alex thanks!
I'm in Pennsylvania and may be able to work my way over to Dayton.
In the meantime, will probably spend a little time giving the whole steering assembly a close look.

[nonstop23]

Well it turns out that the non-driver's side swivel hub was binding, even with plenty of grease in the balljoint. R&R'ed the swivels using the lapping compound method. Kept the rack attached to the car but pulled both covers exposing the rack/pinion - no broken pinion. As luck would have it, decided to check the wheel bearings and the center distance piece had been "hammered" from too much movement - looks like the cause of that was from yours truly accidentally hitting the outside CV joint threads with a metal hammer and the threads were "off" so once the castellated nut went on the nut threads became rounded and loosened up over time. Oh well won't do that again!!!