Since day one of owning my Duratec plus 4 I noticed regular resistance when turning the steering, not very noticeable when driving and just noticeable when the car is jacked up and you turn the steering wheel. However when greasing the suspension and you turn the steering by hand using the hub it's really noticeable.
I needed to find a new garage for the MOT this year and the tester mentioned the resistance saying another Morgan he tests had no steering issues until one year when it was behaving similar to mine, the problem was the universal joint behind the cover on the inner wing was dry. He lubricated it and the problem disappeared.
He recommended I do the same, which I did today but found no dryness/stiffness in the joint. What I did find was the entire inner and outer wing actually moves up and down at the resistance point when you turn the steering! Is this normal? Is anything normal on a Morgan 🤔
Long story short, I unbolted the bearing housing that holds the shaft and the problem disappeared, tried reducing the amount of spacers, but that led to the joint bolt snagging on the inner wing cutout, reamed out the top hole to allow the bracket to drop a little which did help... until I fully tightened the bolts then it was back to being sticky. I can't lower it much further because it will hit the second cutout nearer the front of the inner wing!
I read the universal joints could be out of phase, or more likely I think is they're not exactly the correct length and are causing stress at certain times when rotating.
Anybody else experienced this issue? And how did you fix it? Or is it part of the full Morgan experience I was warned about?
