Play in Steering

I had my Speed 25 MOT tested recently and received an 'advisory' about a small amount of play in the steering.  Please excuse my lack of knowledge of the correct terminology in what follows !  There is an 'L' shaped member which converts forward an backward movement from the steering box to left and right movement of the steering itself.  The play occurs at the point where this 'L' shaped member pivots on the chassis. I have loosened the castellated nut at the bottom and attempted to knock the pin upwards to release it, but it wont budge.  I have also attempted to loosen the shallow nut at the top (through which a grease nipple passes). Turning this moves the entire steering mechanism but I cant actually loosen it. So far the amount of force I have used has been fairly limited as I don't actually know how this assembly should be dismantled and I don't want to damage anything. I do have a powerful impact wrench which I could use if necessary.  Can anybody advise. I have attached photos taken from below and above in case my rather amateurish description is unclear!    [attachment=1:27o4t98z]<!-- ia1 -->linksmall.jpg<!-- ia1 -->[/attachment:27o4t98z]  [attachment=0:27o4t98z]<!-- ia0 -->link2small.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:27o4t98z] Posted by NeilWillatt 15/11/2019 11:23:39

For anybody who is interested, I think I've solved this one.  It appears that at some point in the past this bearing seized, presumably during a long period of storage.  This would have meant that it was impossible to move the steering.  The owner at the time 'solved' the problem by simply loosening the castellated nut at the bottom of the pin and replacing the split pin to ensure it remained in place. This restored movement of the steering by allowing the whole assembly to rotate in the chassis.  The problem with this arrangement is that instead of movement taking place between the bushes and the pin, with a bearing surface of several square cm, it took place between the pin and the chassis with an effective bearing surface of a few square mm.  Unsurprisingly there was some wear over the years, hence the movement spotted by my MOT tester.  My first problem was to un-seize the bearing, and I achieved this by cleaning as much old grease as I could from the lubricating channel in the middle of the pin, and filling it with penetrating oil. After frequent flushing with more penetrating oil using a syringe over a period of about a week, I eventually saw penetrating oil dripping from the bottom of  the pin.  Shortly afterwards I was able to rotate it, and then extract it.  On inspection both the pin and the bushes were in remarkably good condition, so after thoroughly cleaning everything I reassembled it and torqued up the castellated nut.  There is now no sign of any movement and the steering moves freely.  Result ! Posted by NeilWillatt 19/11/2019 19:51:11

Brilliant Neil. It amazing what self help can do.  Richard Melbourne Posted by RichardWallach 19/11/2019 20:53:10

After your first post, I promised myself I would &quot;get out and get under' to have a look.  Your response beat me to it, but I still will!  Thanks for the update!  One of my pet peeves with all Forums is the absence of solutions posted which keeps us all hanging......  Well done! Posted by johnlayzell 20/11/2019 14:05:21