Vehicle & Technical > Defender

steering Play

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Ridgeback:
I have a 90 (1988) It has a new Steering box, new drop arm, all the steerings links are new and no play that i can find in any ball joints
(ball joints are only a year old with 1000 miles on them) But it still has at least 25mm of play in each direction. My friends TD5 has no play!
I know his has only done 30K and is a year old but all the bits on mine are new. How much play should an old 90 have.

Could the ball swivels give this problem !
any ideas

Matt
(ridgeback)

TechnoTurkey:
I'd settle for 25mm of play myself!

Litch:
When all is ok there should be very little play so you are right to still be looking for a reason.

I would say the steering column UJ's are showing wear, you don't say you have checked/replaced them so I think they will be the culprits. Quite often people only realise they are there because they have siezed up and are causing the steering to be stiff or knotchy but going the other way,  even slight wear will show itself as significant movement at the steering wheel.
Early models have replacable UJ's which are both cheap & easy to replace, later models have a non-rebuildable column which also incorporates a rubber bush. I fitted a later column to my 1986 90 a few years ago for no other reason than I got one at a reasonable price and I wanted to see if it made any difference to the feel of the steering. The difference wasn't immense (if even noticable) but it steers very nicely and there was no reason to replace it with a standard column again.

ChrisV8:
Just had a similar issue on my recently purchased Rangie, after lots of false starts with the help of granddaughter found it was the drop arm that was loose, the lock washer had not been staked up the back of the steering box and it was woefully not tightened enough. This needs to be mega tight using a good quality torque wrench. Might be wrong but worth a look.

clbarclay:
The nature of the PAS box is that there will always be some plan in it. From memory its adjustable by a nut from the outside, though you don't want to do it up too much or it will bind.

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