Steering box wobble

Hi there I have a standard steering box for a 1977 landy. I would like to remove the wondering I get when going in a strait line. I have tightened up the box on the adjustment screw, and now have little wobble compared to other landys. However I would still like to remove the element of chance when driving around Exmoor.
Thank you for your help.

Series Landies steer well when set up correctly. However it is a long process to get them right and adjust/replace worn components. A few points to be going on with, check the steering box to chassis mountings are tight they can come loose. Make sure there is oil in the relay, remove 2 screws in the top one to fill the other to bleed air. Ensure the relay arm is set correctly, look at the manual 89/91 degrees. Do all the usual checks on rod ends to eliminate wear.
When all the above is done check the swivels, see the manual for correct pull with a spring balance. I always go for around 12/14 pound pull if the seals are left in place which is more than the manual states without seals.
When that lot is done finally check the tracking, the tracking makes a big difference if wrong. None of the work is hard to do but they will never feel like a modern car, if they did they would be awful off road.

Check the swivels and relay. After ebuilding both on mine it steers wonderfully. Very straight at speed and not wandery at all

check relay is not moving in chassis lower locating ring can come loose.
Get some one to rock the steering wheel while you look at the various parts.
Swivel arms can also come loose on bottom of hubs.
Look at spring to axle joints where ubolts are fitted brighter rust is a sign of movement at the joint.

There are a lot of ball joints involved in series steering and its worth looking at these - especially the ones between the steering box and relay that tend to get overlooked when servicing because they're a pain in the arse to get at. The ones with grease nipples will often work better for a bit of grease.

The swivels are a good point to check and the steering relay, if it is sticking, loose or otherwise damaged is a candidate for a rebuild.

As others have said if you give everything a service there is no excuse for a series to have bad steering but after decades of neglect they are often in a poor state. Rebuilding and setting up swivels and steering relay are fairly big jobs involving lots of swearing to get undone but make all the difference.

You tightened up the steering box...how tight....its not supposed to be tight.

If the relay is stiff you will wonder all over the show...not easy to spot...only way to test is with a spring balance.

Nick.

The steering relay is a bit iffy to do due to the huge spring but its manageable. Well worth rebuilding it and the swivels

nickjaxe said:

You tightened up the steering box...how tight....its not supposed to be tight.

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That's what I used to think until I rebuilt a steering box recently - in the setup instructions (57-4) in the manual it says nip the adjuster until you get 10-14lb" at the steering wheel - it has to be pretty tight before you get that...in the general service instructions (57-1) it just says take up backlash which isn't that tight. Not sure which is right.

nickjaxe said:

If the relay is stiff you will wonder all over the show...not easy to spot...only way to test is with a spring balance.
Nick.

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Very true - best popping off the ball joints and testing - I thought mine was ok because the wheel turned freely - there's a lot of gearing down in the steering that masks the problem but having a good steering relay makes the difference between having vague, dangerous jumpy steering to having something that gives a good degree of confidence.

NB that preload is 10-14 lb/inch which is around 1ft/lb at steering wheel which is very difficult to measure.
Other than attaching a weight at the steering wheel .

Which is what I did. Measured 1' from the centre and used a fish weighing scale to check. It requires quite a lot of torque on the adjuster to make that much torque at the steering wheel.

I wonder if excess torque is what caused this wear.

Dom inch's or Lbs????