I went through my whole steering, from wheels to UJ on lower steering shaft, looking for the cause of the free play at my steering wheel. I was getting 50mm (2") of slack and as you can imagine it made driving on the motorway (highway) or windy country lanes interesting to say the least.

Anyway, after replacing everything, rack and track rod ends, I still hadn't found the problem. I never thought for one minute it could be the lower steering shaft, after all it was only a year old, having been replaced because the UJ had seized. But after very carefully checking it (I mean very carefully as the fault in the shaft was almost imperceptible and all the more difficult as it's hard to see down in the bowls of the engine bay) I just picked up on a minute unnatural movement. So I took off the shaft to find the grease packing between the outer and inner sections of the shaft was oozing out of the seal and there was rotary movement between them too. When I locked the UJ in the vice and twisted the outer section there was 5º of rotation where there should be none. A new genuine shaft solved the problem and I now have tight precise steering.

The moral here is don't over look the simple ( and cheap) solutions. Forget about bushes and drop links and sway bars or bearings unless you know they are FUBARed. with slack steering start at the top and work your way down. If with engine off, there's slack in the steering wheel the problem is more than likely before the rack.

 

Was it a genuine steering shaft?

 

The faulty one that I took off, no, probably Britpart or other after market one, chosen for its cost. When getting the replacement one (under guarantee) I found it to be faulty as well i.e. 2 degrees slack. So paid extra for genuine.

 

I put on a genuine when I did mine. I spray silicone lubricant on it once a year. I want to find a boot for it, like a CV boot, which can help protect and keep some grease inside of it.