v8vroom wrote:

I did open the bonnet (it actually opened when I assumed it was stuck. Probably got lucky), but I did not know what I was looking at. I know which side it is located, but with the LPG setup in the way, I wasn't sure where exactly to point my eyes at. I'm going to use a bright torch and dig my head deeper down lol.

I posted the pictures from RAVE in your other thread. The steering box is on the end of the steering column so on the RH side of the car (unless your car is LHD for some obscure reason).

You've found a dickhead. A minus figure for toe is toe IN, which is why it is pulling to the left. Taking it somewhere that understands a steering box is far better than KwikFit. It's only taking as much time and energy as it is because you are entrusting it to people that don't know what they are doing (and charging you for the privilege).

A sticky calliper would cause it to pull one way and the easy check for that is to check to see if one front wheel is hotter than the other immediately you stop driving. The hot one is the sticky one.

If the steering box is a long way off centre, then the power steering will cause it to centre incorrectly but it has to be a long way off. With the wheels pointing straight ahead it is simple enough to open the bonnet and look at the pointer on the steering column collar.

Airbag light has nothing to do with an ABS sensor. Do you mean the ABS light?

You can't grease the viscous coupling, it is a sealed unit inside the transfer case.

Why do you think it is the steering box? Was it driving straight before you paid someone that doesn't understand how it works start playing with it? If the problem was tyre wear, then that should have told you what it was. Wearing the inside edges is too much toe out, wearing the outside edges is too much toe in, wearing both inside and outside is too low pressure. Squealing when turning sharply may be low pressure or could also be a seized viscous coupling. As you destroyed a front propshaft, unless it was extremely worn and had never seen a grease gun in the entire life of the car, I would still suspect the viscous.

Also point out that if their machine shows anything but zero on the rear, it hasn't been mounted properly.

Once you have both front wheels pointing in the right direction, set it so it is pointing straight ahead. Then look at the two markers on the steering box body and collar on the input shaft. You might find looking from above and using a mirror will help.

If they line up with the wheels pointing straight ahead, that is it, you don't need to do any more at the steering box. It the steering box is straight but he steering wheel isn't, then take the steering wheel off and move it on the splines. Each spline will move it by 5 degrees so if it needs moving less than that, you adjust it at the drag link. If the steering box marks don't line up showing it isn't central, that also needs doing at the drag link. This is a similar adjuster to that on the tie rod but on the drag link but on the front rod between the steering box output lever and LH front hub. See below only the pic shows a LHD one so it is on the opposite side of the car.

Not sure how you are doing it. You slacken off both clamps and turn the centre hex on the adjuster with both ends of the tie rod attached to the hubs. That causes it to lengthen or shorten the tie rod by moving on the threads at each end of the adjuster. If it is pulling to the left, that means the RH front wheel is pointing to the left compared with the LH front wheel. In other words, too much toe in. So you need to adjust the tie rod by shortening it until it runs straight (although don't forget that with camber on the road in the UK meaning it will drift to the left anyway as the camber will cause it to run towards the kerb). on a flat road surface.

Near to me I've got a bit of road that used to be the A1 but has been bypassed so now goes nowhere so I use that. With the clamps just nipped up so the adjuster can't move on it's own but will still move with a spanner on it, drive along, see which way I have to correct the steering for straight ahead, get out tweak the adjuster one way or the other and try again. If it has made it worse, tweak it back the other way and so on until it runs straight. Then the clamps can be aligned as per the book so they won't foul and done up fully.

Only then do you start looking at the steering box centralisation.

It sounds like the drag link and steering wheel were correct but by maladjusting the toe, it has pulled it out. Once you get your head around how the system works and what each adjuster does it becomes clear. The link between the steering wheel and LH wheel won't have changed, so it is only the RH wheel that is pulling the steering one way or another. You can even change a tie rod and reset the alignment simply by doing what you have done. Adjust it a bit one way or the other until the steering wheel is back to how it was. If it was straight before, it should be straight afterwards.

From that printout, he's cocked up fitting the sensors as well as setting it to incorrect settings. It is showing a figure for both castor and toe on the rear but you have a live axle so both can only ever be zero. The computer says that the toe on the front should be -0 degrees 10 minutes to 0 degrees (straight ahead). The minus signifies toe in but it should actually be, from the workshop manual, 0 degrees 5 minutes to 0 degrees 15 minutes toe OUT. So he's set it with too much toe in which means you will wear the outside edge of the tyres. The fact that before adjustment it was showing a different figure for toe side to side also shows the sensors weren't correctly fitted. On a car with rack and pinion steering with an adjuster on each side, it is possible for it to be different side to side. With a steering box such as we have, they will always both be the same if the wheels are pointing straight ahead.

You can ignore the caster and camber angles. Caster will change with the suspension height and the state of your radius arm bushes while camber is fixed but will change as your top and bottom axle ball joints start to wear and develop a bit of slack.

As you can only adjust on one side, you may find that if the toe is adjusted so it is correct, the steering wheel may well become straight or at least straighter. Rather than go back to the mechanic with the correct figures (print the page from RAVE, it's page 15 of General Specification Data) and tell him he is an idiot (and the data on his computer is incorrect), you may as well adjust it yourself. The adjuster is on the rod behind the front wheels that connects the two hubs together. To increase the toe out, you need to shorten the rod at the adjuster which is on the RH end of the tie rod. Slacken off the lock bolts (one needs a 13mm socket and spanner while the other is 17mm) and give it one full turn to shorten it. That will get it from where it is to within the limits it should be at. One end of the adjuster has a left hand thread while the other is a right hand thread so turning the adjuster sleeve one way shortens it, the other way lengthens it. If a full turn is too much and you now have too much toe out, the steering will be reluctant to self centre when coming off a corner, so back it off by half a turn.

Think about it. You have a rod from the steering box to the LH wheel. If the LH wheel is pointing straight ahead but you have too much toe in, the RH wheel won't be pointing straight ahead but will be pointing to the left. Consequently, you will need to turn to the right to keep the car going straight ahead. This may be all it is that is causing the steering wheel to not be centred when travelling straight ahead.

Once the toe is correct, or at least a lot closer to how it currently is, see what the steering wheel position is now. If it is now straight, you don't need to do any more. If it isn't, look at the collar on the input shaft to the steering box (where the lower column connects to it). There is a pointer on it which should be pointing at a similar mark cast into the steering box (you may need to use a mirror to see it). If they line up, then the steering box is centered and the steering wheel will need to be moved on its splines. If the marks don't line up you need to adjust at the drag link on the front rod next to the Pitman Arm (the output lever on the steering box). This is a similar adjuster to that on the tie rod but it may well be seized and will need a bit of brute force to get it to move. If you do it with the key in the ignition so the steering lock is off and the wheels on the ground, the steering wheel and the input shaft will turn as you adjust it. Get it so the marks line up and the steering wheel should, hopefully, also be straight. If it isn't, then again the steering wheel will need to be moved on the splines to get it right.

The whole process is in RAVE, with pictures, but it assumes you are familiar with how the system works so isn't immediately clear.

So he's only done half the job. He's adjusted the wheel alignment, whether it is right or not is another matter (did he give you a printed sheet showing before and after?), but not done the second part of the job which is aligning the steering box and steering wheel. It isn't so much the steering wheel that needs centralising but the steering box. If it isn't, the power steering will try to centre the box which may or may not coincide with the wheels being straight ahead so it will pull to one side if you take your hands off the wheel. Once the steering box is correctly aligned, if the steering wheel isn't centred, that needs moving on the splines so it is.

As I said in your other thread, wheel alignment affects what direction the wheels are pointing in, not whether the steering wheel is straight or not, that is done by adjusting the drag ink. Taking the steering wheel off isn't going to show you anything either.

The tie rod at the rear of the wheels, the one that runs across the car connecting both wheels together, is adjusted to get the alignment correct so the wheels are pointing in the right direction (correct is 0.6-1.8mm toe out although better to aim for the lower of the two figures). Then you drive the car and set the steering so the car is travelling in a straight line but ignoring the position of the steering wheel. Check the marker on the input shaft on the steering box to see if it lines up with the mark on the steering box itself. If it does then the steering wheel will need moving on the splines so it is straight. Chances are it won't line up so in that case you need to adjust at the drag link adjuster next to the steering box. Once you manage to unseize the adjuster (Plus Gas, followed by heat and a pair of Stilsons), with the wheels on the ground and steering lock off, as you turn the adjuster the steering wheel will turn along with the centralising mark on the steering box.

Not sure what the picture is showing other than a tyre? There's two stages to the alignment, the toe in/toe out is adjusted with the tie rod behind the front wheels but the centralisation of the steering is done at the drag link at the front (between the steering box Pitman arm and the LH front hub) in combination with the centering marks on the steering box input shaft. The two adjustments are independent of each other. If the alignment was done using the 4 wheel alignment system with a laser and computer, chances are it will be wrong.

The prop may be a simple bolt on job as long as it is phased correctly. The original one had a spline missing on the sliding joint so it would only go together with the UJs correctly phased. Some aftermarket ones didn't have this so could be assembled any way so could be wrong. If you have the version of RAVE that includes the Classic, that has a picture of the correct phasing.

I wouldn't touch Arnotts with a bargepole, Dunlops only for me and never had one fail. There seems to be a view that anything with Made in USA on it is going to be superior to anything else. My experience with parts on my, American built, boat is I'd rather see Made in China over Made in USA.....

The nut, or the thread on the bolt has probably been damaged when the broken UJ flew out from under the car. Last resort would be to use an angle grinder and cut it off but that would then mean you will have to take the output flange off the transfer case to replace the bolt.

The viscous coupling is a sealed unit filled with a silicone gel so you won't get any noise from it. Driving with one propshaft missing is a sure fire way of causing it to seize even if it wasn't already (which it almost certainly was). It connects the front and rear propshafts so you need to stop the rear from moving, either with the handbrake or with the gearbox in Park and the rear wheels on the ground. Then you try to move the front, usually by lifting one front wheel and seeing how much torque and over how long, you can move it. But that does assume you have a front propshaft connected. As you don't, you will need to do it with a socket and breaker bar on the nut in the centre of the flange the propshaft fits to.

Does the nut turn? If you are holding it at the back it should just undo.

But without a front propshaft, that won't prove anything. The VC is between the front and rear outputs on the transfer case.

Yeah, I don't like bottle jacks for that reason. I've got a big 12 ton one that is intended for trucks but the contact point isn't very big and it isn't that wide so can easily tip over. I tend to only use it for supporting things while I'm bolting them on rather than lifting. It's a bit like the one that LR supply for changing a wheel. We used to have a Disco 2 at work and got a flat rear tyre one day while out in it. Only to find that the supplied bottle jack, even when fully retracted is too tall to fit under the axle when there's no air in the tyre. Had to drive it on the flat until we could get the flat tyre up onto a kerb meaning the jack was in the gutter and would fit under the axle. Then once it was jacked up high enough to fit a tyre that did have air in it, it was wobbling quite nicely.....

My EAS has only ever dropped when I had a duff height sensor and I was driving it at the time. With the car not running and a door open, it isn't going to try to self level so would only drop if it had a leak. I can put it on High and leave it for as long as I ever leave the car and it doesn't drop at all so I know there's no leaks.

Clive603 wrote:

Easy if standing under a car right up on a lift. Trickier on your back with about 6" nose to chassis clearance! But we got there.

I'm the opposite, I prefer to work laying under the car. Normally I do all the work under the car simply by putting the EAS on High and leaving a door or the tailgate open. I've got ramps but the only time I've used them was when changing my gearbox (with the front wheels on the ramps and the rear on axle stands). When I was taking my transfer case off to replace the chain, bearings and seals, I managed to blag the use of a 4 post lift but found that it was either too high so I was on tiptoes or too low so I was having to stoop. In fact, when we were putting it back on after the rebuild we lowered the lift right down so the car was just a little higher than it would have been with the suspension on high.

What caused an issue with the lambda sensor plug? Not sure is your car is a GEMS or Thor but on a GEMS the plug is clipped to a bracket on the side of the sump so you only need one hand to connect it. Maybe with your higher ramps it was too high (or not high enough) to make it awkward.

v8vroom wrote:

In the meantime, I’ll test if the VC has seized (jacking up one side and turning the wheel).

But without a front propshaft you have nothing connecting the wheel to the VC????

The tool covers both the nuts and bolts, they are both 9/16th AF and will undo the fixings at the diff and transfer case ends. Either 1/2" or 3/8" drive depending on what size ratchet you have in your socket set.

You do need a complete propshaft. Your pictures show the UJ has broken off but none of them show the section that goes between the UJ and the sliding joint in the propshaft itself.