[reedjos]

This past weekend a friend and I took our range rovers on an 800 mile plus roadtrip/expedition/offroading trip over the naches pass. His rig is an 89' with 33" tires and during some of the trail his steering box appeared to degrade either from slipping teeth or breaking them off. Is this a common problem with LR steering boxes? Is there a way to prevent this from happening, or were the forces exhibited because of the larger tires and extremely rough terrain just too much for it to handle?

 

[Ryzman]

i dont know about the steering box but i do know that i want your friends non abs brake set up... if he ever decides to part it out let me know k... lol looks like you guys had a lot of fun.

 

[rufant]

I don't know either. It's the first i've heard of that sort of steering box issues. The vehicle is 20 years old now, so maybe a new/uprated box wouldn't hurt, especially with the larger tyres.

 

[reedjos]

It was a very odd condition, upon a hard landing the box made an audible "pop" and then when turning left his radius was about doubled. We measured lock to lock by comparing the distance between the front edge of the tires and the frame rail, and he lost about 1/4 of his acuity when turning left. On the freeway coming home he said it felt like between 1/4 turn left and 3/4 turn left there was just nothing there.

Hmm. I'll let him know he obviously didn't maintain it right, otherwise it never would have broken. :lol:

At any rate, my rover made the trail fine w/o a lift or any other mods. Suffered some body dmg, but I kind of expected it.

Here's some other pics.

Ready to Head Out

Some Views

This is how the trail starts out

This was fun

Some trail pics

Here's the worst of the body damge, the crushed panel is lack of clearance, the rest was sliding sideways into a couple of trees when turning off camber.

All in all, it was a real blast. I just wish we had stopped for some more pictures.

 

[rufant]

Looks wicked fun. Thanks for the pictures. :thumb:

 

[classicjack]

Haven't had my vacation yet this summer, so thanks for those great pictures, mountain view is breathtaking. Never heard of this problem, sounds dangerous on the highway. Im sure youll jack it up and figure it out.