Hello everyone. I have a Fiat Panda 1.1 from 2004 and recently I've had some trouble with the steering box. At first I noticed some play in the direction and wheel. Not much but certainly is there. I had to replace the front shocks and this is how I found out. Also there's been some sort of rattling at larger pots on the road so I figured that maybe these symptoms are related. Anyway I proceeded to take the steering box out. I disconnected the inner shaft from the steering box rod, I also took out the 2 large screw that were keeping the steering box on the car, also took out the connections of the steering arms from each side. Now the box is sliding both ways but only a bit, it seems it is stuck in the rod that goes inside the car. I don't have much space to take the steering box out so I want to know if I need to unbolt the large metal piece that the steering box sits on. I don't know the English term for it, it's the large piece under the car that keeps the brake discs on both sides and everything else. But this would be a pain, as the two major bolts that keep this piece on to the car frame are stuck and would need rather large tools for this job. Plus another jack so it won't fall. What do you guys think? Is there a trick to getting the steering box out without taking anything else appart?
Thank you

P.S. Forgot to mention that the steering box was tightly fitted to the car, so the rattling come from somewhere else. And another weird thing that happened to me, while I was pulling away yesterday I had to turn the wheels while stopped and I heard some lound cranks and after I pulled away I saw that my steering wheel was upside down while the wheels were straight. Like something slipped a few knobs and I managed to offset the steering wheel by 180 degrees. I thought it is definitively a steering box problem and I decided to take it out today and check things. Seems like it isn't this easy. Would suck to unbolt that large piece just to get the box out.