Hi, been lurking since I picked up this 2003 Discovery a couple years ago and finally joined to ask about my steering.

The problem: Most of the time when I turn right it's fine, but as it re-centers the steering wheel as I finish the turn it typically stops turning on its own and gets a little stuck. I pull the wheel and there is a quiet "clunk" but it's pretty concerning. Today I lifted the front wheels to investigate a bit more -- with the engine off it turns freely until I reach that same spot when turning right and it gets really stuck, both when I'm turning it right and when I'm returning it back to the center. It takes a lot of effort to turn the wheel at that point.

I shot some footage of both scenarios to make sure that it wasn't one of these rods getting stuck on something but nothing looks wrong here:

Anyone know what the issue could be?

 

Drop the drag-link off steering gear pitman arm, see if anything changes. I'm assuming you lubed steering shaft joints and they are okay? It seems pretty pronounced, so my gut feeling, without much investigation, would be gearbox. But like said, disconnect some stuf to narrow things down.

 

Killer idea, thank you!

I’ve just finished trying this out now — disconnecting the drag link from the pitman arm didn’t fix it at all so I agree it probably points to the steering box.

I then loosened the steering adjuster and it went away but left a ton of play at the center. Now I’ve got two of the three bolts on the intermediary steering shaft removed and I’m @ the parts shop picking up a torx set to get the third one out (it’s probably 30 or 40, bigger than the ones in my set) and we’ll see if there is still any stiffness. If not, I’ll be ready to start pulling the steering box out for a swap!

 

Looks like RAVE says not to turn the wheel once I remove this shaft so I think I’m going to assume the next correct step is to swap the steering box unless someone chimes in to correct me on that. Almost got the shaft off, already got another steering box on hand from a recently deceased Discovery!

 

They just don't want you to turn the steering wheel, since it will not be aligned properly, when you slip steering shaft yoke back on. You'llmprobably have to make some adjustments anyway, seeing that you're using a different box. You'll straighten steering wheel by adusting drag link.

 

OK thank you good to know. Got the steering box out just now, not so bad but I tried to sneak it out without moving the panhard rod, probably not doable with the drop arm still attached (new one has one so I'm leaving it on). Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I'll get a minute to bolt the new one in. Will need to get in there with a flashlight to see if I've still got o-rings on both hoses and might take me a day or so to get the shaft cleaned, connected & greased.

If you've got any tips on how to know if the shaft needs new u-joints I'm all ears, seems fine to me but I've got no experience with that.

 

Got the replacement steering box in tonight, driving smooth! The new box wasn’t centered so the wheel isn’t straight but I can probably fix that tomorrow (need to tighten the adjuster a bit too).

 

Quick update: The new (used) steering box has been in for a few weeks with no problems. This week I disconnected the steering column, straightened the steering wheel and reconnected it to bring 12:00 noon on the steering wheel to straight ahead.

I didn’t see any videos about this specific task so I put one together myself: