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Just thought I'd remind everyone that there are inner and outer tie rod ends, the outers are replaceable, the inners are part of the tie rod. I recently repalced one, here's what I found.
Although this an easy job, several things can trip you up.
First thing, when loosening the lock nut for the outer end, put something on the old rod in that spot to hold the nut in it's original place, then you can get the alignment for toe close.
My new tie rod had larger (32vs22) wrench flats, no biggie you'd think but those wrench flats hold the locking washer, which did not come with the new part, nor did my dealer have any.
Had to fabricate a new larger diameter locking washer out of a 1/2 inch holed fender washer. you need to ream the hole out to about 14mm and cut in and bend the locking tab which fits into the end of the rack.
Also those wrench flats are pretty useless for a wrench, because of the limited space. I used a pipe wrench. New addition to my garage tool bin and has come in handy.
Oh yeah, get a new boot, when it splits, bye, bye rod end and rack....
So a 1/2 hour bolt in became a 2 day 4 hour fiasco......working on old cars, this is my 82, is only slightly less time consuming than my 1875 house ( money pit, but I love it).
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744-16v,745-16v,242Turbo.245DLT
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