I'm beginning to trouble shoot the play in my steering wheel. The wheel is very loose and free moving between 11-1 o'clock. Only after moving it past that does it begin to turn the wheels. I suspect it's coming from the steering box and I've been trying to find some videos and guides on how to adjust it.

I had a shop look at it and they weren't able to fix it and said everything was fine..here's what they said: "Mystery solved! There are two rods on the front of the vehicle, one is your track rod (Which we replaced due to technician noticed it was bent on last visit.) Then there is the panhard rod which is also a steering stabilizer. We will have to remove this one and have the two bushings replaced."

Then after they inspected: "We did not put the panhard rod on because we checked the bushings and they were fine."

Steering damper they put in did not obviously help. The play is in the wheel. Any help would be appreciated. I can't quite find what the RAVE manual is pointing to. Here's a video of mine.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ad...v01aYs-aDfNslR

 

you need to look further down the shaft, at the steering box itself. as the rave shows, there's an adjustment mechanism on the top of it.
while at first glance it might look like there's just one large nut (the lock nut), you might need to dig into the top of the central part in order to reveal a torx socket.
i have never worried about removing the drag link when i have adjusted the steering. just loosen the lock nut, start the engine, and tighten the torx adjuster incrementally while holding the lock nut stationary. after each adjustment, spin the steering wheel back and forth through its full range, then re-centralise. when you're happy, tighten the lock nut while holding the torx socket stationary. be careful not to overtighten.

 

Found it and cleaning it off. So tighten it until the play in my first video is removed?

I had to remove the intake to get to it, you were able to leave everything in place so you could run the motor?

 

actually, i think the last time i did it i did remove the intake and did the adjustment with the front on axle stands so i could test it without the engine running. i know that on my old truck i ran a really long extension ddown to the torx adjuster.
i have never tried to get rid of all of the play entirely, but it certainly sounds like you could improve things a lot. your box might start to groan if you overtighten it.

 

Your connector could be rusted out .. panhard rod dampner and drag link rod are easy if you got the tools .. whatever you .do . dont keep driving the car ..

 

I did this that same way as @mollusc mentioned about jacking it up to check the steering but I didn't remove the drag link to the drop arm.
Since I was cleaning out the intake manifold area, I already had the airbox and the rest of the intake piping removed/out of the way.
On the steering box's torx screw (RAVE calls it the "Adjuster") and lock nut, I marked both with a thin line of a bright nail polish color (my wife doesn't know I used it. lol). I did this to visually compare how much the steering was out of adjustment before and after.

I didn't have a torx bit so I used a 3/32" allen wrench to firmly hold the torx screw in place from the top while using a 18mm box end wrench to loosen the lock nut.

When the nut is loose, turn the torx screw in very minute increments, a 1/16 turn maybe. Trust me on this. Even though I read from other users to do small turns, I did a 1/4 turn and that was way too much.

It took me a couple of tries of adjusting the torx screw and going back and forth turning the steering wheel feeling for less and less play. I finally got the slack out of the steering and tightened up the lock nut while holding the torx screw. I also went ahead and bled the steering system from the bleed port since I already had the front of the Disco up on stands.

 

I needed to replace all the ball joints on my D2, so I had the shop do the upper and lower ones, as well as the tie rods, etc. They noticed the gearbox was “leaking” and recommended that I replace it. Although I had never had any issues with steering and hadn’t noticed any fluid loss, it was dirty, and I trusted the shop, so I gave them the go-ahead. They aligned and balanced everything.

I got the Rover back with some extreme play in the steering. After having to wiggle through some 18-wheelers on the toll road, I turned around and took it straight back to the shop. They said they had maxed out the adjustment screw and that was as good as it was going to get.

Now, disappointed and a few grand out, I find myself ordering another gearbox. The shop says this could be the fix, as the first replacement may just be defective. I’ll be taking it back to them this coming week and will update y’all.

If you have any insight or advice for these perhaps not so experienced Land Rover-specific mechanics, feel free to give me some input. I can see them probably giving up if this next job doesn’t fix the issue.

-Carlos

 

Not sure what maxed out means? The screw above pushes down on a pivot which turns the wheels. I would loosen the lock nut and slowly turn the torx screw a bit a time and re-tighten the lock nut until you find the steering is tight enough for you.

 

Oh man, there are so many incompetent “professionals” out there. What about reinstalling your original “leaky” box?

 

that’s what I’m leaning towards if this replacement doesn’t out. I’ll keep yall updated 👍🏻