E34 Steering box adjustment

Hi Shaun,

The adjuster is on top of the steering box as you may know. It's just a small flat head screw with a jamnut to keep the adjustment. I adjust until the steering gets tight and then back it off just a tad. After each adjustment and before you check steering, tighten the jamnut again. I've found that simply tightening the jamnut affects the steering preload. If you loosen it up, play with the adjuster until its right, it will be wrong when you tighten the jamnut again. Know what I mean?

Another big contributer to this steering play syndrome is the adjustable collet on the steering column. This is the component that gives you adjustable reach; its a splined connection at the bottom of the column and it develops play over time like anything else. Truth is, I get better results from this than I normally do by just adjusting the steering box.

To tighten that up all you need to do is drop the lower access panel (above the foot pedals) and tighten the collet tension adjuster. With that panel off and your eyes on it, it'll be obvious what needs to be done. I use a large adjustable crescent wrench propped up in the foot well and then turn the steering wheel in the tightening direction. This is much easier than trying to hold the steering wheel while swinging a wrench in the foot well.

Beware however, that you can get it too tight. It's too tight when you cannot collapse and extend the steering column for the adjustable reach function anymore. On my personal car, since I won't be adjusting the reach anyway, I tighten it up all the way. When it comes time to sell I'll loosen it up a bit to bring that feature back for the new owner. But for as long as I have it, I'll take it with the solid feel of a fully tightened collumn.

Hope this helps and good luck.

Jake