Pictorial: Tie Rod Replacement

[micklongley]

Hey guys, I recently took on the job of replacing the whole tie rod assembly due to the astronomical cost to take it to the shop. Its pretty straight forward, and if you're lucky, you wont have to break out the Dremel like I did. This was on a 1984 Westy with manual steering. Enjoy!

Passenger side. Boot pulled back showing where the Bentley manual tells to "unlock" the inner tie rod end from the steering rack. This was some WORK on my van - whoever replaced these last made sure the tie rod wasn't going anywhere. There is a groove in the steering rack shaft where the lip of the tie rod is peened into. I had to use a Dremel to fully remove all the material from this groove.

The outer tie rod end comes out fairly easily when you remove the cotter pin, remove the nut, thread the nut on backwards, and give it a few blows with a hammer.

Old and new.

Old and new boots, check out the stretching that the old boot has undergone. This new boot is going to be a PAIN to get on!

New boot installed on the tie rod, ready for installation.

Inner installed with boot on the rack. This was a MAJOR pain. I had to unbolt the rack to get access to the back side of the boot for installation. Don't try to get it on without doing this... Save yourself and just undo the two bolts - I wish I would have done this immediately instead of messing around with it for 15 minutes.

Here it is, all installed. slide the outer into the steering knuckle and tighten down to around 20ft/lbs and advance the castle nut to the next slot. Throw the cotter pin in and get an alignment!

Some thoughts to help the next guy... The boots were, by far, the trickiest part of the job. I initially thought the "unlocking" of the tie rod from the steering rack shaft would be the hard part, and it was, but the most time consuming and frustrating part were the boots. I also had trouble on the driver side with lining the threads up on the new tie rod and the steering rack shaft - I had to undo the steering rack bolts and pry the rack out a bit in order to get a good angle. Overall a pretty satisfying job.

Thanks to all those that offered help in my original post on the topic.

Mick
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Mick
www.boxerswaps.com ...your VW and Subaru motor swap lounge

[James 93SLC]

Nice job
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91 Vanagon Carat
93 Corrado SLC
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Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/slc.corrado
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tencentlife "Sometimes a pooka is a problem and sometimes it's just a pooka"

[insyncro]

[Tom Powell]

Nice writeup, thank you

Doing some front end work on the van I had a bit of difficulty with the nuts spinning the whole part without getting tight. The vise grips solved the problem. But I think that I made the mistake of finishing the job while the wheels were off the ground. I now suspect that the tightening should be done with the car on the ground. The job looked so simple I didn't read the Bentley or search TheSamba.

Should I loosen and retighten?

Aloha
tp

[Vanagon Nut]

[presslab]

[Tom Powell]

thanks
tp

[dlb]

i just did this job on my '82 air-cooled and found that i also had to undo the stabilizer bar from the body because it was in the way of steering linkage, keeping me from having enough room to get the new steering boot on.

thanks for the post, pictures are worth a thousand words.

[IdahoDoug]

Getting the inner part of the boots on took some finger strength. Find a buddy who's a rock climber. I was worried about tearing it at first and got progressively more aggressive each try. Finally just pulled the living crap out of it and it snapped into place. I stretched it a bit before I put it on the other end, having looked - as your picture shows - at the old one. I've got pretty strong hands and fingers and did not tear it.

DougM
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1987 2WD Wolfsburg Vanagon Weekender "Mango", two fully locked 80 Series LandCruisers. 2017 Subaru Outback boxer. 1990 Audi 90 Quattro 20V with rear locking differential, 1990 burgundy parts Vanagon. 1984 Porsche 944, 1988 Toyota Supra 5 speed targa, 2002 BMW 325iX, 1982 Toyota Sunrader

[stevey88]

I have one suggestion. After you put on the boots, move the small end of the boot so the length of the boots is the same as when they were before installation. This is to make sure they have no stress when the wheels are pointing straight ahead. The boots will last longer this way.
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Steve

87 Westfalia full camper 4 speed

[micklongley]

Here is the link to my site where I document this process a little better.

http://www.boxerswaps.com/volkswagen/14-vanagon/vanagon-articles/2-vanagon-tie-rod-replacement

Thanks for all the helpful input.

Mick
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Mick
www.boxerswaps.com ...your VW and Subaru motor swap lounge

[Ahwahnee]

[AtlasShrugged]

A smear of Vaseline around on the inside of the boot where it goes over the rack end helps when installing.

You can walk the lubed boot onto the rack with your fingers, most of the time.

Helps if you lube up the small end of the boot with Vaseline when you want to do an alignment and need to turn the tie rod without twisting the boot too.

[theDrew]

I just did the tie rods and steering boots -- I was able to get the boots on WITHOUT taking the rack off.

A little bit of grease around the lip of the steering rack, hit the rubber with a heat gun and then I got one side of the boot over the lip, and then slowly rotated the boot and pushed the boot into place as it came around.

Silly boots!
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Turbo 2276 MS3X build http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=673125
1985 Vanagon Campmobile w/ 2005 EJ25

[Gauche1968]

The process for "locking" the tie rod to the rack is still unclear. Just what are you supposed to do to "peen" it? The tie rods screwed out of the old rack without having to "unlock" anything.
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1984 Vanagon GL
1984 Vanagon Westy

[Vanagon Nut]

here's a giant image showing the "lock"

There is a thin-ish collar on the nut. A small section of it gets drifted over and into the slot on the rack rod "locking" the nut to rack rod to keep it from turning loose. I made a square faced drift out of a piece of round mild steel. Used that and a ball pein hammer to knock that collar over and onto the slot.

I guess it's entirely possible one could turn the nut and break this lock loose w/o too much effort but if the nut turned easily, check the other inner tie rod end.

Neil.

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1981 Westy DIY 15º ABA

1988 West DIY 50º ABA

VE7TBN

[Gauche1968]

AH, thanks. I get it now. Nice pic!
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1984 Vanagon GL
1984 Vanagon Westy

[timworx]

Hate to bump and older thread - but I figure it makes sense to keep a simple question in with the same topic for others.
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When removing the inner tie rod, is there a concern for how much you can crank on that sucker?

From what I've been told, they're normally VERY tight and take a bit to free. I'm just very worried about hurting the cast aluminum enclosure of the non-power steering rack.

I tried pulling it out and using a vise, but had trouble getting good grip on the shaft with the vice (forget soft-jaws, I'd destroy them from tightening the vice before anything comes free)


Should I be afraid of making this repair a whole lot more expensive?
Also, I'm just using a crescent wrench, no special tool.

Thanks!

[campism]

[timworx]