Recently i have noticed that i have been getting heavy vibration when braking coming up through the steering wheel.
I also have some slack when turning the wheel from one direction to another.

Now this has been bugging me for some time and has got steadily worse.

I checked the obvious things like drop links, warped or worn brake discs etc but all to no avail.

What i found today was, where the steering shaft connects to the knuckle joint that passes through the floor, the bolt that holds it together was loose.
If you grab the steering shaft you could feel a lot of play there.

Did the obvious thing and tightened the bolt.
This has transformed the feel and performance of the steering and so far not giving any vibrations when braking.

Anyway the reason i posted was there are a lot of people on here who are havibg similar symtoms and are changing the drop links but it does not fix the problem so just worth having a look if this is you problem.

The steering shaft also has a bolt at the top (i did not bother with this one as tightening the lower one did the trick).

Good find, cheap repair. Some liquid thread lock on the offending bolt would be good precaution, making sure it stays tight in future.