My 97 55S failed its MOT today on just one item - although it drives and steers OK, when the tester had it up on the ramps with the wheels hanging, when turning the wheels from side to side with steering lock off, it has a very notchy feeling all the way across, and if you turn it fast, it is quite noisy. I have eliminated the steering column universal joints by disconnecting the lower one and it's still the same, so I have ordered a remanufactured steering rack. Not too pricy; but my question is, with the suspension hanging, could this be putting abnormal load on the steering rack and causing it to feel bad when in fact it is OK? Or is the diagnosis probably sound? I haven't come across any postings of problems with manual racks, if it was a common problem I wouldn't be so bothered. Anybody hit this prob before?

with the suspension hanging there would be less load than usual on the rack, i would say the diadnosis is sound.

Thanks Kebab, managed to extract the rack last night and it's definitely very stiff to push & pull and notchy, took the lub plug out and there's not much sign of lubrication in there.

If anybody's ever replacing one (Mk 1 55S, manual not power), the Haynes manual says you have to drop the back end of the engine, exhaust etc, but I managed without doing this (bit of fiddling around for a few minutes had it out via the passenger side wheelarch). Hope the new one goes back as easily, not much room under there!

yeah those racks come off easy enough