Talk Morgan Forums Thread Like Summary - Lumpy steering

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?

Simple Demo.

Phasing

Gordon, the requirements for steering shafts incorporating two UJ's differ from those for a propshaft. There is a useful pdf download available here explaining phasing of UJ's on a steering shaft. Care needs to be taken as they are not constant velocity joints so individually speed up and slow down as shaft is turned.

Once phased to your satisfaction inner wing clearance can then be addressed.

FWIW this is pic of my upper steering UJ as seen with steering wheel in straight ahead position.



As can be seen the spline bolt appears to be a right angles to the flats on steering wheel shaft. As best as I can judge the lower UJ connecting directly to steering rack appears to have matching spline bolt around 30° further clockwise as viewed from front of car.