About 8 months ago I installed upper and lower front ball joints and found that the new ones were super tight on the steering, I was told they needed to break in. I also installed a Terrafirma 2" suspension lift with some bigger mud tires. Right now the steering is much easier to turn and feels pretty normal but since than there has been about a inch of play in the steering wheel when turning back and fourth. So while driving its a pain to keep the Disco going straight, it tends to coast left to right needing a correction all the time. Any ideas what would cause this would be great... Thank you

 

I had run into this issue installing ball-joints and stopped when things didn't seem right. I replaced the spindle/knuckle and after that it was able to move freely. Before I swapped the spindles out, they wouldn't move when I started tightening up the nuts on the new ball joints. I can only deduce that the tapered holes in the knuckle were out of spec, which allowed it to seat up much higher on the ball joints than it is supposed to. If I were you, I would take a good look at the tie-rod and drag link if you haven't replaced your steering rods. You may find that those joints are worn....the larger tires will do that. Expect for one thing to fail after the other. For the $150 OEM kit on Amazon, I would just replace them anyway or you may shoot for the HD rods. With larger tires I would be researching how much stronger the joints are with the HD rods, if at all. Just lock in the steering box as cited in Rave and look up all of the tips on replacement so that your first trip with the new gear isn't to the alignment shop. That's the biggest rip-off/raquet I have come across this year. If you do it right and take your time then you won't need an alignment but if you don't pay close attention it's going to be another $100+ down the drain to have it straightened out somewhere.
If you still have the same problem with the steering then i can only suspect that the spindles will have to be replaced with new ball-joints again. I have a feeling that the assembly as a whole will fail well before its life expectancy. I'm pretty sure the knuckles aren't supposed to be that tight on the new ball joints so everything will wear out so much faster this time around. Of course, I hope that I'm wrong but the laws of physics and opposite reactions, etc., etc.

While lying under the truck have a 2nd person inside turning the wheel back and forth with some force. If the joints on the steering rods are really bad you will see the play in it even with the engine running and power steering. But with the engine off and the amount of force needed to move the wheels you will def feel and/or see the slack at the rod joints.

 

Good info chubbs878, Im almost positive I have replaced the tie-rod and drag link some time back but could need it again. We dont drive the Rover a lot but with the weather getting cooler we have started to use it more.

 

it doesn't cost anything to take a close look at it. If you have this much trouble keeping it on the road, the offending parts should be somewhat obvious. Start at the wheels and work your way up. I would be surprised if the drag-link and track-rod joints weren't sloppy, but if they happen to pass the test I would still thoroughly test the ball joints that you just replaced and make sure that the knuckle assembly is still in check. I had new BJs go out in less than a year because something wasn't within spec the first time I did the job.

 

I had the same issue. I did end up replacing both tie rods which helped some vibration I had but didn't cure my wandering problem. If I had to guess I'd say you have some play in your steering box. There are videos and such online which will help you a lot, but the quick and dirty is that there is an Allen head stud with a lock nut on the top of the steering box. It's probably rusted. PB Blaster plus a wire brush will clean it up enough. Loosten the lock nut and tighten the Allen head a quarter turn at a time until there's almost no play but it's not so tight that it's making noise.