Series 2a - Vertical play in front wheels

Hello again. Starting with normal disclaimer - I'm relatively new to this (although I'm an "expert" on gearboxes now).

I took my Series 2a for a compliance check so I can get it re-registered and legally on the road. Most things checked out well, but they pinged me on play in the front wheels which I'm not trying to diagnose and am looking for some help. I've managed to remediate a lot of horizontal play by simply nipping up some loose nuts on the relay arm.

Any thoughts on what might cause vertical play at the front wheels? If I grab the top of the wheel and the bottom, I can jiggle them about 1mm to 2mm. Is that excessive?

I can see that the movement is around the swivel pin. I have no idea when these were last rebuilt so I'm entertaining a teardown but would prefer to get it back through the compliance check as time is tight.

Are there any adjustments I should be checking for in the swivel housing?

What year? early ones had shed loads of play as standard, later rialko ones much less.

There are shims under the pins that hold the hub to the swivel. Held in with four nuts and lock tabs.

Remove a shim until solid, then once tested, replace the Railko bush and set up according to the manual

lynall said:

What year? early ones had shed loads of play as standard, later rialko ones much less.

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1965. I’ve just been reading about the conversation kits. Sounds like a must do.

There are conversion kits for Series 2 and early 2a from the spring cone bush mostly used on series 1s to the Railko bush that was used on 2a series 3 and Ninety and One ten models [ my Ninety is so] Railko work well and last a long time as long as housing has oil in it. There are also conversion kits to change from Railko to later taper roller [ top swivel ] [ all lower are roller bearing] [Your 65 should be Railko]
As noted by @Wildefalcon above there are shims under the top swivel that can be removed to tighten the system. This is also how you set the swivel pre load [ look it up in the book] that controls steering wobble.
Shims are of different thickness, start with removing thinnest re fit swivel pin and test preload until correct.
Run out of shims to remove its time for new Railko bush.
Note. Have axle on stand and jack just holding the bottom of swivel housing up as you remove top pin or it will drop a bit and oil will escape.
With the small movement you have recon shim/pre load adjustment will likely do the job.

For the future I'd advocate changing to the taper roller.

The Raiko bush is a bit of a bodge. When you adjust the pin shims for steering preload you're just pushing the pin harder on the bottom of the cup-shaped bush. From the outset every time you brake, accelerate or turn the pin is pressed into the sides of the cup and that compresses the fibre material allowing slop. Re-tightening by removing shims doesn't fix that, it just makes it harder for the pin to slide across the bottom of the cup.

As @Wildefalcon says, take some shims out to get it tight, pass the test and order the taper rollers for when the slop comes back.

Can you get the same preload using the bearings as the Railko? The Railko bushes have never given me trouble with standard wheels.

Wildefalcon said:

Can you get the same preload using the bearings as the Railko? The Railko bushes have never given me trouble with standard wheels.

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No, but the steering relay does a half decent job - there's a bit of bump steer now that may or may not have been there if I'd fitted new Raikos. But certainly not enough to warrant a coiler type damper.

tottot said:

There are also conversion kits to change from Railko to later taper roller [ top swivel ] [ all lower are roller bearing] [Your 65 should be Railko]

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Wish I knew this a while ago, I spent ages looking for a conversion kit for a Series 3 so I could have taper roller bearings top and bottom, to late now I did mine over Christmas. Would be really useful if you could post a link to the kit for future reference.

Wildefalcon said:

Can you get the same preload using the bearings as the Railko? The Railko bushes have never given me trouble with standard wheels.

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The job is pretty much the same with Railko and taper roller. Some good video's on the tube.

Preload when using taper rollers is about a 1/3rd of the value when using Railko top bearing. Still not found any info on this conversion kit for Series 3 Land Rovers, it may be that the kit has some more specific advice on preload, I used the value for the Defender with top taper rollers.