Steering Rack Stiffness

When I had the subframes out of my LE500, I noticed that the steering rack seemed a bit tight. Normally I would have expected the rack to slide left-to-right quite freely. As there were so many other jobs to do, and because there was no play in the rack, I decided that it was because the car had been off the road for several years and just grease-up as much of the rack that I could get to hoping that it would loosen-up with use.

Maybe this was a mistake, because now that I am getting used to the feel of the car on the road, it feels like it is reluctant to self-centre, which means that I generally have to help steer the car out of bends more that I would have expected, and at higher road speeds, you need to make a lot of corrections to keep it in a straight line.

Has anybody else experienced this, or has anyone currently got a spare rack out of their car to see how easily the rack slides left-to-right?
When my rack was out of the car I did try to find some information about the normal rack sliding force, but this data doesn't seem to be available anywhere.

Before playing about with the rack I would think about having the wheel alignment checked, if the alignment is out lack of self cantering is a common symptom, 4 wheel alignment would be even better.

I admit to not having played with a power steering rack but have rebuilt a couple of manual racks in my youth. I remember back then I did have figures for how much force for the tie rods and pinion to move courtesy of Mr Haynes. Exactly how did you test it? was it notchy or just stiff, without any assistance I would expect it to be stiffer than a manual rack.

These cars are also noted to have light steering at speed due to aerodynamic lift, a splitter might help, combined with a vented bonnet it definitely would help but how far do you go.

I looked at RAVE but as usual no useful info other than steering geometry as Mr Haynes is now sadly deceased Mr Google seems to be your last hope.

Tracking alignment worked wonders for my 115. It cured that odd situation you described where the road wheels and the steering wheel have slightly different ideas about where to centre hence requires constant correction to drive in straight line - exhausting and distracting and no one should have to put up with it.

The rack should be fairly free and easy to move. Its basically a manual rack so no more complicated than that on a classic Mini, an MG Midget or Mark1 Escort .
The powered bit of a TF's steering is provided by an electric motor in the steering column. It is fairly easy to separate the column from the steering rack,if you wanted to check them independently, by removing the pinch bolt (inside the car just above where it goes through the bulkhead) and using gentle pressure to move the spigot out of the joint.

Many thanks for the response, but the alignment is fine. The lack of self centering is the main issue (especially driving around town). The EPAS easily overcomes any of the effort required to steer into a corner, but I think that the stiff rack then inhibits the rack from returning to a straight position without a reasonable amount of driver help.
Normally the steering geometry makes the steering self-centre - is that not the case with TF's?

Over the weekend I will look at the EPAS calibration, but I think that seems ok as the car doesn't wonder off once it is in a straight line on a smooth surface.
I know that the rack was very stiff (high sliding force) when it was out of the car so I am sure that is the problem, but hoped that someone else had a spare rack that they could do a sliding test for me to compare with.
This rack has less than 20K miles on it so there is very little wear, but maybe it got damaged due to a hitting a curb. Potentially causing a bent rack.

I'll probably just live with it as it is and look at replacing the rack in the winter.

Im not sure why you are separating the two things. Alignment sorted out the self centering on my steering, the fact it corrected the tracking imperfections was a secondary benefit