Should my 1995 E300D have about 1 inch of steering wheel play.

The recent jobs done are

new tie rods (meyle)
new drag link (lemforder)
new idler arm bush (lemforder)
new steering shock (destek) - got it free (also have a belt shock from the same company)

The play is very loose and I guesstimated about 1 inch on the circumfrence of the wheel. After the 1 inch movement on the wheel the pitman arm on the box reacts and the rest follows. Before the above jobs I had very very terribly shot joints and the car was all over the road.

Is this normal or should I be removing the manifold to attack the box with a 19mm spanner and 6mm allen