Notch in the steering - 04 TD5 110

Recently noticed that ive got a notch in my steering, but only in one point.

Turning the wheel right from center to the 1/2 oclock position you can feel a notch, when turning from 12 - 1 the steering does feel a little light until you hit the notch then all is fine.

No other issues notchy or otherwise in the rest of the steering, i.e full left and the rest of right.

I disconnected the damper from the drop arm which moves freely with no notchy feeling, balljoint moves alright and is full of grease.

New trackrods
New balljoints
New steering damper (TF RTC)
Recently tracked
No leaks from the PAS
PAS box has enough fluid
Steering feels normal
No whine or other noise from the PAS

Sprayed the column UJs with wd40, lock - lock and repeat. Then did the same with moly grease.

Improved things a tiny bit, but still there.

Any ideas?

Hi Bankz,

I may have missed it . But,when you disconnected the drop arm, did the notch still happen in the steering wheel or was it OK?
Did you isolate it to one side or the other of the drop arm?

Cheers

Afternoon, The arm itself was still connected, just disconnected the damper from it. No noticeably notchyness or otherwise, reconnected notchy again.

Once you turn past the notch steering is normal

I would isolate the steering column / Box from the track rod / steering bars etc and see where the problem appears to be residing.

Cheers

As in disconnect the drop arm.ball joint from the rest of the steering system. If so so, done that and it moves freely lock to lock without issue.

When you did that, did the steering wheel still have the notch?

Cheers

No, free as bird. No notches.

When the drop link was disconnected did you try steering it by grabbing the road wheels and twisting? (Front off the ground). In other words, I suppose, you need to keep disconnecting until you isolate it.

Having said that - if you can employ a minion to turn the steering lock to lock and put your hands on each part of the system - you should be able to feel when you've got a mitt on the dodgy bit.

boguing said:

When the drop link was disconnected did you try steering it by grabbing the road wheels and twisting? (Front off the ground). In other words, I suppose, you need to keep disconnecting until you isolate it.

Having said that - if you can employ a minion to turn the steering lock to lock and put your hands on each part of the system - you should be able to feel when you've got a mitt on the dodgy bit.

Click to expand...

Good plan! Ill give that a crack tomorrow before i put me steering guard back on

I did, I jacked up the whole front axle and moved the wheels, couldnt really feel much in it

Mine used to have a notch in it. The culprit turned out to be the tapered roller bearings in the steering swivels - the ones that do duty as a 'kingpin' (although Land Rovers don't really have a kingpin as such). They'd got worn so that there were indentations where the rollers bore on the outer races. You can just about make them out in this picture:

This was at the end of 2014. I put new ones in and they've been fine ever since.

The notch was much more noticeable when I detached the steering linkages from the hubs and turned them by and. You could feel it as the wheels passed the straight ahead position.

Thanks everyone. For the time being it appears to be solved, ive worked more grease into it and all is good now. Ill save this @Brown incase it crops up again!