Apologies if a similar post exists. I thought I would put this under a title that I would search for, and as I have just done this today, it might be useful to someone. I did this in my yard, on the floor.

Typically needed when the UJ in the lower column seizes or develops play.

Note no pictures as there is absolutely no room to get a phone in and shoot anything meaningful!!

Starting in the engine bay, I removed the OS covers around the ABS unit. Lid (plastic clips which are very brittle), plastic side piece (L shaped and doesn't seem to be attached to anything but might have some broken clips), and the little L shaped bit by the bulk head. Remember to unclip the brake servo pipe from the side when removed.

Engine side of the tray floor is held on by 3 13mm nuts. Remove these and remove that side of the tray floor. Needs a bit of a wiggle to get the taller bulkhead end of it around the engine.

With the steering wheel in the car straight, you can now see the top of the lower steering column. This is slid over the upper column with a torx head bolt locating it. Can't recall the size but its quite small. Always worth getting a few of these sockets and not trying to bodge it undone with a regular socket. Loosen this off but don't remove yet.

Jack the OS front of the car up safely and put a stand under the chassis. Higher is better because access is limited. Put the stand in a place that gives sufficient room to wiggle around under the car. OSF wheel off.

I took the undertray off and the front and rear lower wheel arch guards. If you haven't come across them before, these are held on with plastic push rivets and you need to slide the top portion of the head out in order to release them. A trim tool or two flat head screw drivers works fine.

I located the steering rack pinion and got under the car with an inspection lamp (something with a spring clamp would be ideal, I propped mine up in the chassis and it kept falling on my face!) so I could get a good view of it. It is above the ACE pipe mounting bracket to give an idea of location, and the bracket is right in the way, making access difficult. There is a torx bolt (same as the other end) clamping the bottom end of the UJ to the steering rack pinion.

My wife rotated the steering wheel until the torx bolt head was almost facing directly down (but not quite, it was very slightly rotated towards the engine bay).

With my longest 3/8 wobble bar extension, the correct torx socket, and a ratchet, it was almost a straight line onto the bolt to undo it, wobble bar point down, back, and slightly towards the car centreline.

Once this was out, the wife but the steering back to straight ahead.

Once out, back to the engine bay and remove that bolt, and slide the lower column (which has a sliding section to compress) off the upper column and let it drop, then back underneath. Using a medium pry bay as a drift (as it gets exactly the right angle) I gently tapped the lower clamp off the rack pinion.

The old lower column comes out from the top. I could not see a way to get it out from below as just too much stuff in the way. The rubber flex plate is a bit of a wiggle to get past heat shields etc, but it does come out with a bit of manoeuvring.

Popping the new column in from the top also takes a bit of manoeuvring, as there is hardly any room to get one hand in. I managed to get it in, then slide the lower column back over the end of the upper column. The new one was a bit of a tighter fit, and I am afraid that choice cursing was involved, but it went on with a little penetrating oil to ease its path, and the bolt back in loosely to keep in there.

Back under the car, the next bit was the hardest part of the job. Getting the lower clamp onto the rack pinion was quite hard, mainly due to no access to get anything but finger tips onto it. I used the pry bar to carefully uncompress the column, and another long screwdriver to line the clamp up with the pinion. Then, with some careful wiggling of the pry bar, got the clamp lined up properly (there is only one way it goes on), and slipped over the end of the pinion. Again, it was tighter than the one that came off, and took a bit of figuring out how best to lever the clamp down so that the bolt hole lined up with the dip in the pinion. A few more choice curses and some penetrating oil, and very careful levering with the pry bar between the UJ and the end of the starter solenoid (really careful as the end of the solenoid is plastic), and it slid into location.

Maybe my hands are like extra large jazz hands, but I could not get them through any gap to get the a new bolt in, so a flexi magnet did the job. I couldn't find any literature on this so put some thread lock on it (and the top one). Torx socket and 3/8 torque wrench to tighten it to spec and all done at that end. I put the undertray and lower wheel arch guards back on at that point.

Back up top, rotate the steering wheel to straight ahead, thread lock the top bolt and torque to spec, then reassemble the plastic tray and cover round the ABS.

Had a quick inspection around the wheel arch, suspension, steering and brakes while I was there and decided I will get new pads as they are getting low. Then wheel back on, lug nuts torqued (I replaced 3 as they had swollen), and then back down off the stand and jack.

I had to do the lower column due to play in the wheel. Not much, but enough to feel I was correcting my driving line all the time. A quick lunch (Wife is very good at bringing tea and food, especially when it is 4 degrees), out of my work clothes, then a test drive.

So much better!!!

So the difficult bits to my mind were:
- new column has tighter clamps than the old one
- Figuring out how to undo the lower clamp but actually it turned out to be easy and almost a straight line with a long wobble bar
- Getting the new lower clamp seated on the pinion properly.

There is not much room to do this with a TDV8, but its not a difficult job, and the only special tool needed was the correct size torq socket.

Hope that helps someone!