[T3] Tie Rods

J. Jonik j_jonik at yahoo.com
Tue May 23 17:52:44 PDT 2017


Replacing bad wheel-end ball joint on driver side tie-rod...Not easy.

After maybe decades of use, the ball joint took clever and heavy banging to  finally get out of its hole...by lowering car onto a pipe standing up from the street...propped under tie-rod end...then Liquid Wrench squirts and hammer banging on the heavy metal holding the ball joint...which came out eventually.

But then that ball joint end section of the tie rod Would Not unscrew from it hollow metal tube. Clamp loosened, of course.  Holding the other tie rod end tight with 1 inch combo wrench, heat, and plenty of Liquid Wrench...and Very Firm grab on ball joint section with big vice grip...did nothing.  Tried big monkey wrench, WITH breaker bar instead of vice grip on ball joint. Still nothing.

The tie rod tube has a split separation at the end...good for entry of Liquid Wrench maybe, but no tool comes to mind to slightly part that separation to loosen the 45 year old rust-locked thread.    The ball joint would NOT unscrew from the tie rod tube...even using 2 ft breaker bar on the monkey wrench...and holding the other end solid with that 1 inch wrench.

So...question now is...how the heck to adjust toe in...OR replace tie rod ball joint...if the things simply will not unscrew from each other?   If there are tricks of the trade for OLD cars...they aren't in the manuals.

Since some spare tie rod assemblies are in my parts collection...would it be better to just replace the whole tie rod, including the ball joints at both ends?  The "easy" job of just replacing the damaged wheel end ball joint has come up so far as impossible.

Can't imagine the job of getting the inner end ball joint out of its hole...if replacing the whole tie rod (w/ both ball joints) is advised.


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