Does anyone know if we could substitute a worm gear box for a Rack Gearbox Bracket and still have it be stable enough to raise and lower the linear sliders?
http://www.vexrobotics.com/275-1187.html
[http://www.vexrobotics.com/275-1188.html#
Haven’t tried it, but we did used to build our own brackets for the slides before the rack and pinion gears came out. I’m sure you can make it work.
(We also used to have to process our own iron ore and wind our own motors. Uphill. In the snow. Both ways. You kids today…)
That’s the fun of a robotics building platform like vex if you dont have the exact piece you need most of the time another one will work just fine as a substitute. If the piece does not work the way you need then try making your own. That’s what makes vex so great, its so easy to make your own piece .
our sister team made their own (custom spacing) gearbox out of LEXAN!
its super light and gets the job done!
they used it for opening/closing a claw
and now they are making another one because a novice team loved their gearbox so much, they took it 
Earlier this year my team was experimenting with linear sliders. One of the things that we tried was using the worm gear box instead of the rack gearbox, like you are suggesting. I can’t remember exactly what the results were, but I am pretty sure that it didn’t work.
If you are really set on using the worm gear box one of the things that you can do is space the worm gear box away from the linear sliders with the metal washers so that you get the perfect spacing.
Thanks for all the information. We did decide to just buy the rack gearbox bracket.