Shop Buick Tie Rods

Of course you have to remove the boot. The end is a ball in a socket and the rod will just rotate in the socket forever. You need to reach the inner nut.

It looks like you may have already destroyed the knuckle cutting off the other end.

You DO realize that is a tapered shaft wedged into the hole and has to be either pressed or jarred loose.



edit: I see you just posted ahead of me while I was typing. You will need more than vice grips to hold that. A pipe wrench would work better.

Well for some reason, I have never owned vicegrips, but do now and some c-clamps, and sawzall blades. Will find a pipe wrench. It sounds like maybe I can just turn out that outer,maybe. The new plug in the spindle wants to come out, it is real close now.

Ok...I thought he was meaning he couldn't remove the outer tie rod from the inner. More than likely the knuckle bore is going to be wallowed out. You'll need to replace the knuckle if that is the case. You could blow the nut off with a cutting torch and then pop the rest of the ball joint shaft out.

OMG - That would have just come off with a normal pickle fork with nut removed. Cotter pin stuck and all nut would have come off with air or heated with air.


Just made this a project never mind anything else,


T

In the beginning was the shaft spinning while you were trying to take the nut off.

Well you might be in luck. If you can pop the nut off, then you can wack the rest of the shaft up through the knuckle bore. As long as the shaft itself wasn't spinning, the bore might be fine.

Always hard to say but my torches would split that nut without heating arm. Glow nut on other side and open it, it would fall off.


Then a punch smaller than the threads to they don't widen punch it out. If no luck whack the side of the arm them pop right out.


See crap like that you can't even recognize there's nut at all from rust and still get those out,


T

Back inside at laptop I was scaring my recalcitrant outer tie rod off.

Well no ones biting.


I went Medieval on her but got lucky and even went for a highway cruise. The spindle was fine and the car is not clicking/ clacking anymore and seems to be rolling straight. I need to get a oil change and grease that new tie rod end thou. Thanks for the help. It made me realize what was up with the inner tie rod.

OK - Looks like this worked out. Now put the "Saw's All" away and get a good grease gun and never fight with this crap again. Good ones aren't cheap with pistol grip vs lever action takes three hands or buy fitting end that can't fall off for about $40 bucks.


Don't over grease either but eventually blobs of excess come out. Use that on parts to rust proof them. Doesn't look like this this has seen a grease job in a decade. Try 4 times a year on everything if the car as a whole is safe enough to keep and use. Fitting can be replaced BTW and if one wont take grease at all it's probably worn flush inside and that part NG anymore.


Just look back at your floor jack - it's so rusty I don't trust that much so careful with these things.


Next job if this was such a mess is to check every single joint and suspension part that could be in trouble. I've seen rust tons worse than that and also have seen whole components pull right off whole from where mounted.


Again, check all the other things that could be this bad and a total safety concern either rust or worn out from lack of service,


T

I think you have seen, elsewhere, what already happened to this car, several years back. The tiny washers holding the rear sub frame rusted. This allowed the bolts to slide thru the bushings and both sides of sub frame dropped, this caused an immediate loss of steering. I fixed it with some huge washers and new bolts. I also, can undercoated, the whole car after wire wheeling what I could.

Why are you still driving that thing. Are you going to wait until the engine falls out in the street?

I'm not there. They can do that and just force pickle fork for pressure and I call it "scare" it out with high impact wrench. If hole isn't any good and might not be think about it then?


It's done no matter what just too bad IMO,


T

That piece is never coming out of the knuckle as long as the nut is on the other side. You never should have hacked it up. You only made it harder now.

You need to cut the strap the holds the rack boot to the rack housing and then remove the little clamp at the other end of the boot. You still need to remove the nut, so you can slide the little clamp and rubber boot off. Once you get that out, you need the inner tie rod remover and installer tool. Autozone may have one you can borrow. When you reinstall the rack boot be sure the equalizer tube is installed. Use a black zip tie in place of the strap that you cut off.




There are probably tons of tube videos showing how to remove and install inner tie rods with the special tool.

Oh no what a mess, but thanks

Thanks - brain Phart - locking nut - duh. I've never owned alignment machines so if only to center wheels they went out for the full printout and other adjustment if needed with anything that could alter it,


T

I managed to get some vise-grips on it and it busted loose as soon as i cranked on it. Well, i thought it did. Come to find out it had a plastic sleeve covering the head of it. So i popped it off with a hammer and screwdriver and there she be, an inner tie rod with a hex head that fit perfectly in the tool. One last question. The shaft that the inner screws into has alot of rusty looking grease on it. Should i just clean it up and put a thick layer of grease back on it? Does it matter what type of grease. Thanks.