Return of the stiff steering

[Mandrake]

How old are the outer track rod ends ? I'd imagine if they were seized they could make the steering significantly stiffer, as they turn the same number of degrees as the hub more or less. They can also tilt sideways somewhat, it might just be that when they tilt a certain way they seize more, thus the intermittent smooth/stiff problem.

If they're old and mangy looking and you've already ruled most other things out I'd probably just replace them. They're dead cheap, the only problem is having to reset the wheel alignment afterwards if you don't have your own equipment to do it.

[Xantidote]

I find it difficult to believe it's the UJ, if it comes and goes. Sounds bit more like a hydraulics or steering issue, though I'm not very knowledgable on that side of things. Hope it's not too big a problem.

As an aside, in the old days when I had my BX DTR Turbo, I had an intermittent heaviness/stiffness in the steering. Replaced the steering ram, but no improvement. In the end, replaced the flow diverter valve (lots of pipes attached) and that cured the problem. I found the old FDV had a very fine mesh filter in two of the banjos in/out of the FDV, and their mesh had disappeared. Maybe the filters had partially blocked, then burst, and the bits of filter mesh lodged in the valves of the FDV. Don't think we have any similar metal mesh filters on the Xantia (except maybe very early sinkers?). My Xantia TD just has the usual plastic filters in the LHM reservoir.