This thread found using search led a to a fruitful afternoon in the garage, mine was a broken circlip but the info in the thread gave me the clues I needed to find it, ta.

Cool beans Jon - cheers for the cheers

Glad some things work out - hence the amount of pics and keywords lol

The broken clip was allowing the pinion to try and drive up the teeth on the rack rather than move it thus creating free movement at the wheel, I'm suprised you needed to space the bearing, the clip is hard up to it on mine.