A long story Bob. The first owner didn't like the steering kickback and had some uprated stub axles fitted after 2-3k miles. This is because the angle of the track rods was levelled around 06/07 to reduce bump steer. From what I found when I took it apart, it was obvious that the new stubs had not been reamered very well, because there was a lot of play in the nearside. This was picked up at the MOT at around 6500 miles and I doubted the tester. It did actually pass but with an advisory. The folowing year I went to my 'village' MOT station where I've taken cars for years, and watched what happened when the tyre was levered. There was a lot of play. I made it do another year, then got the parts. The steering bearing conversion is a no-brainer really if the kingpins need doing. The difference is amazing. You can see from my how to thread that the pins were badly worn in well under 10k, probably due to lack of grease, and somebody had fitted upper nipples without checking the pins, and since the old pins had no drilling, the top nipples were decorative only. In 05 you only got one nipple per side as standard, and to be honest, the top one doesn't do much. So that's the story. Glad you like my style, but it's simply that pictures are worth a thousand words. Pictures are what sets this forum so far above all the others. Narrative and line drawings are OK, but close up pics define the job better than any other way. All workshop manuals should be done that way now.
Knowing that the reamering had been done too wide, made me very wary about doing mine - knowing when enough is right. There comes a point when the pin will go through with some effort, but barely turns. Too tight will give stiction - the very thing you want to avoid, but too loose is building in wear. That judgement call can't be defined in writing, but all I can say is that mine were quite tight, but have proved to be great on the road.
The other consideration is tyre pressures. On 22psi and zero clicks on the AVO's pre-kingpins I was getting the bobbing. Three clicks stopped that and I'm now on four clicks. I'm also running 25psi all round, and the steering is marginally lighter than at 22psi. One of the concours cars yesterday was running 18f/22r, but you could see it was laterally wobbly on such low pressures, so try 25/26 and see what happens.
Good luck with it.
