Inner And Outer Tie Rod Replacement

[swata12345]

I plan to change these myself to save some money. I was checking to see if anyone has changed these before?

Does it require any special tools and do I really need to drop the entire Rack & Pinion? Or can I just do this without dropping that..

Any help would be appreciated.

[glenmore]

I just did my outer tie rods and they are easy. I have a front end suspension tool kit that has several different types of pullers making things easier but this is not necessary. I looked at the inner tie rod repair in the manual and it is much more complex. There are some special tools needed and torquing some fasteners to spec is important.

glenmore

1990 LS400

1991 300CE

2000 C280

[eScott4]

Just finished inner and outer tie rod replacement and boots on my buddy's 2000 LS400.

Recommendations:

If possible, several days prior to working on this project, soak all nuts with a good penetrating oil. We used Kroil but PB Blaster is good, too.

Remove brake calipers on both sides and suspend them from shocks with wire. Calipers are secured with two 17mm bolts that were hard to remove. You'll need a large c-clamp to squeeze the caliper pistons prior to reinstallation. Removing calipers will give you room to access the outer tie-rod bolt (see below). We tried in vain to remove the outer tie rod bolt before removing calipers, using a big hammer and pickle fork wedge. The pickle fork can only go in so far before it hits the outer tie rod and stops wedging.

Use the Pitman Arm puller (or other wheel puller that may fit) that are widely recommended. You can borrow/rent from local parts stores. After removing calipers, we used the PA puller and it worked great. Then after my buddy had one of the left side boots covering the right side inner tie rod, and new outer tie rod was torqued to spec (59Nm), realized the right boot was wrong size. Had to remove the outer tie rod again to remove the boot and get a new one on. By then we had returned the PA puller, but a neighbor had a steering wheel puller that worked great.

Get the correct parts: The inner and outer tie rods and boots/bellows are different for right and left on this model. On hand, we had the correct right and left outer tie rods, but had identical inner tie rods and identical boots/bellows. After everything was torn apart, we were lucky that we found the correct parts locally (in DFW TX area). Those parts were a little pricey, but no choice. Look at Rockauto or other good online parts catalog BEFORE doing the job to see what parts are required, even if you do not order from them. Never had any wrong parts problems with Rockauto and I order a lot from them. Their core return shipping is cheap, too. Thru their website, paid under $7 to return a rack & pinion core (35 lbs).

[billydpowell]

I replaced the lower ball joints and had no problems on my 99 LS.. and I don't see the TRE's being a problem..