MOT Advisory - Free play Steering rack?

[Galileo]

I was going to take my Sprint on Holiday to Orkney (Hoy)* with me but had one of those waking up thinking "MOT!" moments just a couple of days before, and of course it was overdue by a couple of days, and of course I got a failure. As my 4x4 is also off the road (ha!) waiting for me to sort the sills to be welded, I ended up with a Seat Leon hire car, capable, dull, noisy tyres, and with rock hard seats but at 60mpg I might have got the £200 hire cost back in fuel saving!

Now, I've got a mate who is a MOT tester, but I like to not mix business and friendship so I use a village garage to do my MOT's and emergency repairs. Anyway, nothing that concerning, and they were very complimentary about the overall condition of the car and walked me through the failure points, but I've just noticed an advisory which he hadn't mentioned, so just making sure that you would read this as steering rack wear rather than TRE?

Reason(s) for failure
Parking brake: efficiency below requirements (3.7.B.7)
rear Brakes imbalanced across an axle Axle 2 (3.7.B.5b)
Brakes imbalanced across an axle (3.7.B.5b)
nearside rear rear brake recording little or no effort (3.7.B.5a)
offside Headlamp not working on main beam (1.7.5a)
nearside Track rod end ball joint dust cover excessively deteriorated so that it no longer prevents the ingress of dirt (2.2.C.1c)
offside Steering rack gaiter split (2.2.D.2d)
centre Exhaust system not adequately supported (7.1.1)
Advisory notice item(s)
Free play in both ends of steering rack

Reason that this interests me is that I have never managed to get rid of a steering vibration at speed, right smack bang in the 65 to 75mph range, lower or higher** is fine. Would replacing the steering rack be a good use of my money?

I know what all of the brake issue is, oil or grease leaking into the hub, smells like grease rather than diff oil, but I read on here that it is very rarely the grease seal?

Ta for any thoughts!

*Had a great weeks sea fishing and chilling, lots of abandoned WW1/2 buildings dotted around what was the main base at Lyness overlooking Scapa Flow for the Royal Navy until finally closing in 1957, fascinating to explore.
**Tested off public roads officer.

[Carledo]

From experience of both MOTing and testers and knowing the current rules, I would say that "play in both ends of the rack" translates to the inner balljoints, the ones that are covered by the rack gaiters. A few years ago, these got included in the reasons for failure on MOT and, for a while, every other car tested was getting failed on rather tiny amounts of play here. There must then have been a "test case" or two because another ruling came down (just too late to stop me buying an expensive special tool to remove these sometimes troublesome articles) saying that since the rack gaiters obscure your vision of said joints, you could not fail on (alleged) play in them, only advise! I know, you couldn't make it up!

Since the tester cannot and will not be any help here (he can only advise, whether a tiny amount of play is present or a massive amount) it falls to you to do your own assessment. But you have the advantage of being able (and in one case the necessity) to remove the rack gaiter for inspection of said joints.
Again from experience, i would say that a few thou of play at either end is acceptable, in fact almost inevitable, but much more than that would merit changing the inner track rod (NOT THE RACK!)

And finally, if you have vibe that comes and goes around the 60 mph mark, it's a dollar to a doughnut that it is front wheel balance related.

Steve

[whydidistartthis]

Is it also true, that if these joints are 'tested' at full drop. (wheels in fresh air).
There can be a significant difference, to operating height operation?
My car, in my opinion has a strange amount of play when jacked up. But has so far never been mentioned on the MOT.
Steers fine, so no worries for now

[RobSun]

I got an advisory for this three MOTs back. I was able to go around with the tester and he checked for this with the car on a post lift and the wheels hanging. He checked them again with the wheels on the ground and found no play but he put it as an advisory.

Since then it has passed two MOTs with no advisories so testers methods and own interpretation must come into it. The last MOT tester failed the car on the headlight beam patterns being different. One headlight was a flat top pattern the other puddle, which had passed since a new headlight was fitted in the early 2000s well before my ownership, and a broken drivers seat frame which I was expecting. On re-test he passed it with a clean bill of health only for the front brakes to seize on, on the way back home. Prior to this happening there was no imbalance or problems stopping but the off side piston was solid. Both front callipers were rebuilt and the whole system checked out and now the brakes are no better or worse than before.

Just goes to prove in the extreme that an MOT certificate only shows the car was safe at the time of the test

[Galileo]

Spot on, an MOT is just a mostly visual non destructive snapshot in time, as I was once told "that crack in your windscreen happened on the way out didn't it?"!

Cheers Steve, I'll can the rack purchase then and if I find any play shim out the inner ball joint instead, as you say I can easily check condition when I put on the new gaiters. Only recently replaced the steering rack mounts whilst I had the engine out earlier in the year, and never noticed a split, but then I've racked up a few thousand miles since then I guess. As to the vibration, I would have put money on wheel balance being out but different wheels and tyres have done nothing but just change the speed it happens at, and I've noticed it changes if there's a sweeping bend so that's why I was getting all excited about the rack.

[Carledo]

Spot on, an MOT is just a mostly visual non destructive snapshot in time, as I was once told "that crack in your windscreen happened on the way out didn't it?"!

Cheers Steve, I'll can the rack purchase then and if I find any play shim out the inner ball joint instead, as you say I can easily check condition when I put on the new gaiters. Only recently replaced the steering rack mounts whilst I had the engine out earlier in the year, and never noticed a split, but then I've racked up a few thousand miles since then I guess. As to the vibration, I would have put money on wheel balance being out but different wheels and tyres have done nothing but just change the speed it happens at, and I've noticed it changes if there's a sweeping bend so that's why I was getting all excited about the rack.

DOH! so many different cars, I forgot the inner joints are adjustable on ours! Its possible that cornering loads can affect wheel balance vibes by unloading the inner wheel which can exagerate any tiny bits of play in the rack or wheel bearings. If changing the wheels changed the vibration for better, worse or just different, then the problem lies there. Fresh fitted wheels out of storage often exhibit odd vibes for the first few miles, even if they've been stored flat (not the no air flat, the laid on the inner face flat)
So go back to your original wheels, put 50 or 60 miles on then roll into your tyre centre with the tyres warm and the pressures correct and get them balanced.
I have had a lot of trouble with older Sprint wheels shedding the stick on weights they use on alloys these days, yet another reason to use something better (read bigger and wider to clear better brakes)
Also, tyres are SUPPOSED to be fitted in a certain orientation to the rim which "naturally " balances it up. IME most tyre fitters ignore this and just sling weights at them. I get all my tyres fitted by a mate who has a tyre changing machine but no balancer so I make sure the red dot is lined up correctly, and only once in the last 5 years or so have I had to resort to getting a wheel balanced commercially (and that was a really cheap nasty chinese budget tyre on a second hand and rather suspect alloy for my Cav - but it was a free 5th alloy that spends most of its time in the boot!)

Steve