Replaced Inner Tie Rod - Made Mistakes.

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I replaced the inner tierod on my truck with a Moog EV370. I usually read the instructions which come in the package but there were no instructions, so I plunged in. The good news is that I had a little bit of play on the driver side front wheel and now there is no more play.

I read the FSM after the job was done and realised that I made three mistakes. The manual wants the rack and the tie rod joint greased which I did not do. I can slide the boot back and easily rectify that. The joint already had grease in it, they want more added?

There was a plastic sleeve over the original joint, which the manual calls a shock dampener. The manual wants it to be transferred over to the new joint. I can do that without too much difficulty by disconnecting the outer tie rod.

The manual wants a pipe wrench on the end of the rack so that the torque involved in loosening and tightening the tie rod is not transferred to the internals of the rack and pinion unit. I did not use a pipe wrench and must have applied about 140 ft lbs of torque to break the old loctited joint loose. Might I have damaged anything? So far no symptoms.

I set the toe by using string and jackstands and am pretty confident that I have the toe set correectly.
 
I highly recommend you get the alignment checked anyway. Last time I changed tie rods I thought I got the toe bang on but ended up being WAY off.
 
If it has grease in it, I wouldn't worry. I'd go by what the Moog part said, and if it didn't say to grease it, you're good. The FSM is probably written that way because maybe some come ungreased and they want you to check it.

The shock dampener thing, never seen one so I don't know.

If it's not clunking or doing anything odd, don't worry. I've never heard of the pipe wrench thing. When I replaced my tie rods on my Liberty, I just used a big adjustable wrench, didn't hold the rack or anything.
 
Originally Posted By: mclasser
I highly recommend you get the alignment checked anyway. Last time I changed tie rods I thought I got the toe bang on but ended up being WAY off.

You will be surprised by how accurately the toe can be set if you are diligent enough. I set the toe many years ago on the truck and the front tires are wearing very very evenly. I am assuming incorrect toe will manifest itself in tire wear, I don't know how accurate the assumption is.
 
You really should get a real alignment.

With it on jack stands, you have weight on the wheels right? Wheels aren't floating? Because you can't do an alignment if the weight isn't on the wheels, the toe will be quite a bit off.
 
Did you get the steering wheel centered?

It can a PITA some times to get it centered. I gave up getting it centered this past Spring when I used the string method after I replaced a lot of parts on the front end. Took my truck to get a two wheel alignment done, and the tech did say I did a dang good job of setting the toe.
 
HoosierJeeper is right, if it's greased, it's greased. Not all parts come greased.

The "shock damper" is just an accordion sleeve, right? It's only purpose is to keep grit from getting into the grease. You should get it in there ASAP, but it won't explode if you don't.

If the rack isn't leaking, and you can move it from lock to lock without any funny noises, you probably dodged that bullet. Time will tell.
 
The shock damper is different from the boot. The shock damper is about 1 1/4 in long, smooth, pinkish white in colour and fits tightly over the ball and socket joint of the tierod.
 
I managed to align my last 528e by taking painstaking measurements of the original set up. I kept it a 1/2 turn short to account for the wear. Drove great and tires didn't wear on the edges. Wheel was still centered.
 
Well, I can still do the way FSM wants on two of the three items. It is too late for the pipe wrench backup, what has been done is done, no way to correct it.
 
I just want to add that a lot of people do not know how to properly align toe with the string method. A majority of people incorrectly assume the front and rear wheel widths are the same, when most are not, and proceed to align the two hub centers parallel with the string.

Since most vehicles have smaller rear track widths, by adjusting the front to what you think is neutral (zero toe) is actuality negative toe(toe out). To properly do a string alignment you have to add the difference in track width, from the front and rear, to the hub center spacing for a proper parallel alignment.
 
No, it is to hold the rack while the inner tie rod is unscrewed from one end of the rack. This is so that the torque does not get transferred to the components inside the rack and pinion unit.
 
I had to cut the crimped on clamp on the inner side of the boot. I used a Dremel, taking care to not cut the boot itself. I used a hose clamp to clamp the boot back. On the outer side there was a spring clamp which I just slid off and reused.
 
You're fine.

When I did an inner tie rod on a dodge neon it got sketchy, b/c dodge doesn't consider it serviceable separate from the rack. The factory TRE had no wrench flats. I took the accordion boot off, hosed out the grease with brake cleaner, let it dry, then welded the ball into its socket and put a pipe wrench on the accessible outer portion. Two takeaways:

If I didn't weld it sticking directly straight out, it would have rotated and banged into something, interfering with its removal and

Welding something that had brake cleaner on it makes mega toxic gas.

The residual grease still caught fire, but burned itself out.

New part had wrench flats.

Didn't wreck my rack either.
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The string method is legit. I use a laser level, same principle. If you only work on one corner, and your steering wheel is centered, you done good.
 
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