What does this do?

Hi guys new to Land Rovers and was under mine wire brushing and painting my chasis yesterday when I noticed this. To me it looks like some kind of hydraulic arrangement, when I wiggle the smaller part it moves freely in the bigger part (sorry for my terminology). I guess it has something to do with articulation?

Looks like it's had a wack anyway, could this be causing my clunk when I turn and go over something.

Also one of my steering arm ball joints is split, could this cause that knocking and maybe the reason the tracking is out?

My steering wheel has to be turned slightly to the right about 30 degrees for it to drive straight.

Will be sorting these out next month when payday comes.

Thanks.

Sorry for upside down pic

Steering damper. Helps reduce steering vibration.

Think of it as a side mounted shock absorber.

Not too sure on the clunk but the bent drag link won't be doing you any favours. Just change it, easy job and cheap as chips

Cheers guys, gave me a couple more keywords there "steering damper" and "draglink" to help me on my journey!!

Time to get them steering bars off and check the bars for true and make sure all the ball joints are good.

Bars can be straightened if you're on a budget and will be just fine, new ball joints are cheap and could save your life so fit 4 whilst you're at it, make sure they're the type with grease nipples on.

Get a Haynes manual, it has the stock lengths in there for the two bars front eh centre of each joint, the grease nipple is handy to measure from also see, I know what I'm on about

Then you need to check your steering box is in the middle before you connect your bars up

Check under neath to see if there is a notch on the rear side of the drop arm, this lines up with a notch in the steering box to show when you're at centre.

Otherwise you have to count the turns on your steering wheel and stop in the middle.

You're steering wheel might need replacing in the centre once you've done this

Then connect your bars and see if it drives straight

If it drives to the left, you need to shorten the front bar, the right, lengthen it.

Do not adjust the rear bar once you've set it to factory length.

Once done, tighten up all your locknuts and clamps securely.

That should keep you busy for a while

Easier and more accurate just to pay someone to do the tracking but yeah replace the drag link, track rod and all balljoints. Your steering should be (relatively) spot on then, parts are all cheap and a doddle to fit so its worth doing

Haha Mr Noisy just trying to understand everything you said will keep me busy for a while!

I'm not a complete novice and will have a go at anything but at the moment my skill set doesn't go much further than servicing!

I hope to learn as much as possible though and going to get the spanners out with a haynes when I'm back off holiday, and with much needed help from here!

When you say it can be straightened does that have to be done professionally or get it on the bench with the lump hammer?

Bench, hammer... All these things are land rover approved tools

You REALLY don't need to have a landy professionally tracked!

Before I got into landies I had very little knowledge and a bit of ability, now there isn't anything I wouldn't attempt on a landy, with the help of the forum and a decent manual, rave is best but Haynes is a start, most things can be done with a basic tool kit and some hammers, notice I said some, you will need a selection you can never have too many