Shocking steering
u For a while now, the owner of this 2008 Vauxhall Combo Van had been worried that the steering felt a little rough. When he voiced his concerns my first action was to jack the van up to have a feel of the steering. The amount of play at the road wheels confirmed that the steering rack was in need or replacement, with quite a bit of play to be felt.
Although the subframe needs to be dropped slightly to give sufficient room to manoeuvre the rack out, the job isn’t too difficult, and I soon had the old rack out and the new one in position.
With the old rack on the floor I spotted that the rack boot and securing clips on the offside weren’t the original ones. Removing the boot, I then discovered that the rack was covered in thick rust, suggesting that at some point the old boot had split and not been replaced quickly, allowing the road dirt and rainwater to attack the rack.