Series 3 Steering Box Adjustment

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metallicachick86

New Member
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1,308
Location
Bury, Lancashire
Under BusterB's instructions to not send it to him. He said put it up ourselves.

Your series steering wheel got loadsa play? Heres how to fix it. (or, here's how Tom fixed it, so he's written this. :D) Pictures might be crap, phone cams arent great, even new-ish samsung ones.

How'do

First, get your wheels straight, easy bit over.
The steering box is under a cover, under the drivers front arch on left hand side, and looks like this:

steeringbox.jpg


There are 2 bolts on mine, series 3 82 LWB. I've seen a LHD stage 1 V8 with a slightly different cover with a bolt at the bottom too, thats comes through the bulkhead behind the pedals. These are all 13mm nuts and bolts. Top one i used spanner on the outside, bottom one i used spanner on inside of wheel arch. The top one came off first:
steeringbox2.jpg


Helps if you have long arms or an assistant, or both. Took a while to get spanner in right place but did it, then the t'other one:
steeringbox3.jpg


This one, i used the ratchet underneath the master cylinder, pointing inwards to the engine under brake lines, pinning bolt with the spanners underneath, which was difficult trying to get it started. Once thats out, the box will either fall off, or just need a slight tug to break the mud layer:



The box looks like this, check its not spewing anything, and my lock nut bit was greased, dont know if it should be, dont hurt though :D The lock nut (bigger one) is 24mm, and adjuster is 11mm, its too tight to get sockets in there:
steeringbox5.jpg


Slap the ring over the lock nut, normal thread, be careful, be worth spraying with something first giving time to soak. I didnt, and cracked me shoulder on the outside wing when it went, ow. Then turn the 24mm round and get your 11mm out:
steeringbox6.jpg


Once you've undone the lock nut by a turn or two, hold it in place. Get someone in the car to check the play, then turn the 11mm normal way to tighten. (if your on your own, lock the 24mm off again, just to make sure it dont slip when to re-check the play). Keep going until you remove nearly all the play, if you tighten it too much, go back a touch. Then tighten the 24mm back up.

Done, just pop the cover back on, but the bolts on and done. Now, ours had been adjusted before, and they'de struggled to put it back together, and put new holes in and stuff, i had to bore out the top hole in the cover to get it back on. Apart from that it went smoothly. And the difference is amazing, being a non driver i could only run up drive and back, but it is definatly better.

Tah for reading.:) Tom and Bex
 
and don't fergirt its a series landy so the nuts and bolts are imperial and not metric. if yer use metric spanners yer stand a good chance of rounding orf /the nuts. so fer 11mm read 7/16 AF and when i remember wot size the 24mm one really is i'll let yer know.

oh and thur shoudn't be any free play just nip the adjuster up till all the play has gone away
 
24mm is slightly bigger than the 15/16AF wot the nut actually is. now will yer tell yer Bert to stop using metric spanners on his nuts as he'll round em orf or slip and round his knuckles orf
 
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