Thread: Catastrophic power steering box/sector shaft failure in the County

Never heard of that happening before. I have replaced a worn out 25+ year old 4 bolt, but it showed no signs of letting go. They are tough units.

Your drop arm looks to be an aftermarket replacement judging by the red boot clamps. Aged arms are notoriously hard to separate from the shaft. My guess is that the old one was flogged with a BF hammer during attempts to remove it, damaging the shaft in the process.

Have had one do this, a 4 bolt in a defender that "kissed" an embankment while the driver was holding onto the steering wheel for dear life... the twist and subsequent shear was spectacular. The main reason why I don't fit anything but new, or used boxes only from a known driveable not crashed vehicle that we have disassembled ourselves. Any insurance quotes that I do automatically include a steering box if the vehicles have significant rim, tyre, or steering arm damage too.

This is the first one I have heard of, so it certainly is not common.

One was reported on here a few years ago in a 120.

Put him through a fence on the farm, it was a fatigue failure.

A few years ago a relative of mine had a tooth come off the rack (and jam steering) on her Corolla (around 300,000km), fortunately at low speed. Only one of that I have heard of.

This sort of thing may be becoming an issue as more vehicles do a lot more kilometres than has been usual in the past. Thankfully, I replaced the steering box on my County about fifteen years ago (it has now done over 640k km.).

I've decided to go new for peace of mind.

It's worth noting the County only had 160k on the odo, but who knows how it has been treated in that time.
It has standard wheels/tyres/offset. As shown in the photos, it has had the suspension changed out, but it's not a lift as far as I know.

I found a few links discussing similar failures:
Catastrophic Steering box failure!

Serious failure of steering box - Defender Forum - LR4x4 - The Land Rover Forum

Problems with defenders steering sector shaft

I'll post pics when the shaft is removed.

Well then, I'm glad my replacement was new 4 bolt adwest.

These boxes can be abused offroad for decades without ever experiencing this failure.

In the case of OP with what looks to be a relatively low km straight and well looked after county, one would think there was either a manufacturing anomily or the arm/shaft at some point in its life has been struck hard, resulting in stress fractures and eventual failure.

I am sure I have read a few drop arm removal posts where people have attempted to whack the **** out of it! Perhaps there is a link here.

Just bad luck I guess... Could have been much worse though!

Assuming the drop/pitman arm has been replaced, can anyone tell if it's standard duty? If it's HD, I'd rather refit a standard duty arm and possibly have it bend next time instead of transferring force through to the shaft (?)

The existing arm will be getting pressed off, so no hammer treatment this time around

Going with a genuine, new 4 bolt box for ~$1400 + hose conversion kit