Hello All,

I posted earlier this month and am now in the midst of this project.


Had a bad front driver's wheel bearing start to make some noise, and during inspection noticed that the driveshaft outer boot had recently torn. I also noted that the outer tie rod on the driver's side was a little sloppy and the pass side was beginning to move. So.........

Replaced the hub bearing and driveshaft. What a pain to remove the combo ball joint control arm (yes, after removing the pinch bolt) after 11 years. Had to use a 3' bar and a sledge hammer to break it loose. Anyway, I finally got those components back together and started after the tie rod which of course was stuck in the knuckle. Out came the sledge hammer again to get that end loose. However, I couldn't separate the threads of the tie rod from the inner tie rod/rack. There's 13 mm flats on the inner and a 21 mm cast in nut on the outer and for the life of me, I couldn't separate the two and began to round the soft 13mm flats.

Since I have to get it aligned, should I just let the shop replace the outer tie rods and pay my pesos or is there some tricky maneuver to separate inner from outer tie rod?

Thanks for any help you can offer. BTW, why can't things be easy like they are on my 240's. I rarely have to resort to sledge hammers for coaxing!

Thanks again,

Marty Wolfson (oleseahorse)