Thread: lower steering shaft removal

Hello, I was wondering if any one has attempted to remove the lower steering shaft to replace the lower steering universal fitted to a 98 discovery.
I tried to remove it this afternoon with little success, I followed the manual loosening the bolts on the universal joints which held the spline on the steering shaft. Then it said to slide the shaft up and disengage the steering shaft and remove from the car, not the case. There is no way near enough play to slide the shaft out of any of the universal joints it will only move about 3mm befor the steering shaft bottoms out in either end of it's universal. There seems to be a collapsable joint in the middle of the shaft with no easy way to seperate it. Can any one help me out would be appreciated.

Cheers Matt

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'> I removed mine to fit a Modif. of a pvc sleeve through the firewall to stop the shaft "sqwarking" on a rubber bush so I know it comes off ok.[/b][/quote]


For anyone that isn't aware of this LR mod for the 300 Series Discovery. (It should have been fixed for later vehicles.)

There was a sqwawking as the wheel was turned & it drove me bonkers. What it was, was the steering tube rubbing on the firewall grommet. Trying to get some sort of rubber lube in there only lasted a short time so was ratsch.


The fix is to remove the lower steering shaft above the steering box, (I seem to recall there was a bracket or something INSIDE the footwell that neeeded removing/slackening.)

A short piece of pvc tube is well greased inside, & that is slipped over the steering wheel tube from the engine bay. This is a tight fit in the firewall grommet & the tube can now freely rotate inside the PVC section & 'problem solvered'. I can't recall if the grommet needed to come out & refit it. Maybe it did.

LR did put a "kit" out for this, but I used a piece of white pvc water pipe slit lengthwise so that it could tighten up in the grommet & onto the tube. This was similar to the LR kit.

Thinking more about this, it must be apx. 6 years since this was done & it has not dared make a squeak again.

Anyway, I offer this in case some still have this problem & it too is driving them nuts. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img]