Steering Damper Mount

My steering on my 300Tdi seemed a bit wafty, so I had a good look under there and all the ball joints were knackered with split boots and they all look seized solid in the tubes, I spent an hour trying to free one and gave up.

So I thought don’t mess about and bought a new damper and a set of heavy duty steering rods with new ball joints. Fitted it all today and it took me just over 2 hours.

Question I have is:
The mount for the damper on the new rod is bolted in position not welded like old rod I removed. I have tightened the 6mm U bolts as tight as I dare but it still rotates slightly if I twist the damper. Is this ok that the damper mount rotates slightly? Or should I get a weld on it?

Going to take it tomorrow to get the tracking checked.

Well I took my disco to have the tracking done today and the guy groaned when he saw a disco saying they may not be able to do it if the track rod ends are seized and they normally are. I soon put a smile on his face when I told him they were all brand new parts.

They remarked on the new steering rods and the way they were easy to adjust saying they had never seen any like that before as they have flats on the end to put a spanner on.

It needed doing as it was 6mm out on one side so it was £30 well spent and its drives so much nicer now and it don’t feel like its wandering all over the road. Just a dozen or so other jobs to gradually get done now.

I also seem to have quite a bit of rot appearing, both A posts at the bottom you can poke your finger through them, usual place in the C posts is bubbling and I stuck a bolster chisel straight through the inner wing into the passenger footwell when I poked a scab, cills at the rear on both sides are well scabby I dare not prod them yet.

Waters ****ing in the rear sunroof since last week, but I still love her and she will be put right over the coming months.

The Mondeo I had before was well boring as that never needed anything doing to it.

I have 4 spare sets of sedimentor seals if anyone needs any PM me