The play you describe is what I had in my W124 box, I then got a junkyard box which was a leaking item and piece mealed two boxes together to make one good one.

Your problem is in the input drum shaped thing - in my car its holding nut is internal to the box and quite an ordeal to setup - I found a person (builds american steering boxes) to help me out in the process. Result was good.

Do not adjust the allen head screw to take out this sort of slop - its impossible to remove with that.

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2012 BMW X5 (Beef + Granite suspension model)

1995 E300D - The original humming machine (consumed by Flood 2017)
2000 E320 - The evolution (consumed by flood 2017)