After some more help/advice. The steering on my 85 340 has always been heavy but I'm now at the stage that I really need to do something about it - on the move it is fine, but slow speed activities, parking etc, take FAR more effort than they should! Is there a fault I should be aware of, is it a case or re-greasing, or does it just probably need to be replaced?? The obvious potential issues of wheels/tyres and suspension have all been investigated over the last few weeks, but nothing has made any difference.
If the top mounts (the rubber part) is failing then the rubber binds against the top spring seat making the steering heavy. I would pull the struts off and investigate what is going on up there.
Again dry stiff ball joints and track rod ends will make the steering stiffer than it should be
It's the combination as Dai says, but pretty much every 300 I've seen over 75,000 miles has had spring cups that show fatigue. It's one of my tests if I'm judging at the VOC shows, as it shows how well kept the car *actually* is as opposed to how well polished it is
Currently I can think of 4 cars I've tested that I didn't knock marks off for, 2 of which were sub 50,000 miles
The bearing as designed runs on 2 horizontal surfaces, if either of those can run away, there is nothing to bear against and it's metal on metal.
The 360 suspension is more prone to this sort of thing due to the extra weight, and perhaps the stiffer shocks, especilly if you uprate them (I think.. but havn't really analysed it). The bearing support can crack up/split, especially after a little corrosion. In mine this made the steering pull hard to one side after going full lock, this was fixed temnporarily by going to the other lock to recentre the bearing. The design looks weak to me, a thicker reinforcement might be in order for harder driving.
Another more unusual problem was a stiff rack in a 360, I think it may have been caused by a missing heat shield at the steering pinion and the case or rack warping.
