Have you read the articles regarding steering by Service Dept Vic?
Not sure what you mean by "sluggish" since the L1500 has manual steering, unless I am mistaken. If by sluggish you mean tight and hard to turn you may have a bearing going bad.
Have you greased the tie rod ends? A rusted tie rod end can cause problems with the steering system, I would eliminate all external causes before taking the steering box off the tractor to repair it; it isn't that repairing the steering box is a hard job, it is more of a pain getting to it.
Robert
