Thread: What happened to your Discovery 2 today?

As with most of the work I do on the Discovery, this is the first time I have replaced the intermediate steering shaft, and likely to be the last.
I have a touch of performance anxiety with new tasks, What happens if I **** it up, what is plan B, or plan C...
In any case removing the intermediate steering shaft was not that tricky, yes the bolt near the firewall is hard to get to, I used a 10mm spanner, undoing the bolt, 1/6th of turn at a time. The Torx bolt and the lower 10mm bolt were access via a long extension. You have to take the bolts out fully, they fit in a groove in the splined shaft. I was pulling and pushing at the intermediate steering shaft until the penny dropped. The steering is now nice and smooth and in need of alignment. How easy is it to remove the steering wheel, align the wheel and replace? Hmmm.

Take it to a decent aligner, get them to do an alignment with the steering wheel central. Has the steering wheel ever been off? Probably not, the problem arises when aligners take shortcuts, aligning one wheel, then making all the adjustment on the other.

The steering wheeel is about 45 degrees off. Can a wheel aligner remove that much error?
Edit
I'd rather have this done for me.

remember that the indicator self cancel relies on the steering shaft position.
Regards PhilipA

Originally Posted by Bohica

The steering wheeel is about 45 degrees off. Can a wheel aligner remove that much error?
Edit
I'd rather have this done for me.

you can do easy yourself... well kind of easy. it's technically an easy job, but lying on your back on the ground heaving on a large nut with a spanner that doesn't leave a lot of room ... all all after a heart attack ... easy peasy stuff!

Do you have std drag link?

Don't move the steering wheel, use the drag link to reset the steering to centre ... that's basically what it's for.
if you have a std drag link, you need a pair of 13mm and a pair of 17mm for the locking rings. the nut for the adjuster link is 24mm(open end).

I think you recently said you changed links and rods and ball ends recently, if so, your adjuster should be a bit easier to spin, but if the rods are older, they will have a lot of build up and harder(MUCH harder) to turn ... for an oldie with heart problems lying on back with not a lot of room to swing spanner ... just saying.

Ideally, what you should do is remove drag link from steering drop arm. turn wheel from one side to another to make sure it is centred according to the steering box. steering box has a fixed amount of turning capacity .. so in an ideal world, first up you want the steering box centred. Then you try to centred the adjuster end of the drag link to have (roughly) equal amounts of thread so that you have adjustment leeway either side of centre.

If you have parked the car with the wheels close to straight ahead, you should have the ability to adjust the drag link in either direction to fine tune the stg wheel to dead straight.

I just spent about an hour doing this very thing this morning. drag link had much gunk build up and very hard to turn adjuster. It may take a couple of tries to get spot on, as it's easy to overshoot trying to get stg wheel central to where you think it needs to be. second adjustment step fixed that.

Keep in mind: as you adjust drag link, front wheels need to be set as straight as you can get it. There is slack in the steering box and rods and arms and shafts and what not. front wheels need to be on the ground, not in the air! as you adjust the drag link length, you can physically see the wheel slowly come good. but it's a lot easier to do with a helper to tell you when it's centred, rather than getting up and down to check yourself.

Originally Posted by Bohica

How easy is it to remove the steering wheel, align the wheel and replace? Hmmm.

You align the steering wheel while you have the shaft out, you should not need to remove it at all unless a knuckle dragger has messed with it.

The pitman arm has locating stubs that you pass an 8mm bolt thru which screws into the steering box, and it is then held in the correct central position, you then set your steering wheel to the correct position, then refit the shaft.

The steering wheel may move a smidgen left or right to align with the shaft teeth, the pitman arm is still fixed by the locating bolt.

Then align your left side wheel using the drag link, then align your right side wheel using the track rod (all this with pitman arm locked in straight ahead position still), then take out the 8mm bolt and go to the wheel aligner to fine tune.

Originally Posted by johnp38

You align the steering wheel while you have the shaft out, you should not need to remove it at all unless a knuckle dragger has messed with it.

Umm, that would be me.

Originally Posted by johnp38

The pitman arm has locating stubs that you pass an 8mm bolt thru which screws into the steering box, and it is then held in the correct central position, you then set your steering wheel to the correct position, then refit the shaft.

The steering wheel may move a smidgen left or right to align with the shaft teeth, the pitman arm is still fixed by the locating bolt.

Then align your left side wheel using the drag link, then align your right side wheel using the track rod (all this with pitman arm locked in straight ahead position still), then take out the 8mm bolt and go to the wheel aligner to fine tune.

Bugger, remove the shaft!
Ah well, live and learn.

Well took more than a day as they were old lights. But discovered behind the right hand headlight an orange wire with red rings every inch or so that was taped up on the end. It was part of the headlight main bulb wiring form and it has 12 volts on it when the lights are on high beam. Connected it to a relay mounted behind the head light and the driving lights are controlled by the high beam. Too easy.