Hey guys, i was wondering if any of you have changed your ti-rods. (the inner one to be exact) I bent one by hitting a curb pretty hard the other day and now i cant drive until its fixed. I took it to the shop and they want to charge me 367. and 102 for the inner ti-rod that courtesy can get me for 40 bucks. The shop guy said you needed a special tool to do it. and after i do that i need to get it alighned..that i agree with. So you mechanics out there...:D :D this one is for you. Do i need a "special tool" and if so..how hard is it to get a hold of?

thanks,

Man your luck....... :rolleyes:

According to FSM inner tie rod is screwed on the rack. It has a lock plate that has two 'fingers', pry those off and unscrew the tie rod. Problem will probably be getting a wrench on the nut. FSM lists NO special tools to do this job.
Travis

I helped my friend on his 91. I can't exactly how we got it off, but I'll give you a description below. His user name is Luminus, you can PM him. I'll let him know that this post is on here.

There is a lock plate with 2 fingers. We did pry that loose. If I remember correctly we use a wrench and took a long time to get it off. I'm pretty sure Luminus did it from under the car, but I'm not sure on that. He could have done it from the wheel well. It takes some time. I remember putting it on we couldn't get a whole lot of torque on it so we decided to put the strogest Loctite possible on it and called it good I believe.

No "special tools" needed, just tell the dude he's full of it. Buy the part from Courtesy, do it yourself, and get it aligned at a separate place, or do what I do, have a trade school do it by one of their "students"....cheap, cheap, cheap!

Originally posted by xTurbo Classicx
[Do i need a "special tool" and if so..how hard is it to get a hold of?

thanks, [/B]
You can use a large Crowsfoot- don't remember the exact size though. Sears has them.

For those who don't know, a crows foot looks like this:

http://www.sears.com/data/product_images/tools/standard/00943588000-dv.jpg

Put a big long extension on that, and you're good to go.


I was able to remove mine by cranking the rack all the way to one side, then using a large crescent wrench. At that point it just stuck far enough out that you could get at the inner end of it, where the flat parts before the ball joint.

The job would be a whole lot easier if you either bought one of of the above tools, or rented an inner tie rod removal tool (this is the special tool they are mentioning, they are common). I wish I had. I'd make sure to measure the size of the tie rod to get a tool that'll fit.

Another word of advise: get the nissan oem inner tie rods. I bought aftermarket ones, and the locking tabs wouldn't line up anymore, part of the reason I used loctice. I think you'll have to buy the inner and outer as one piece, and it can't hurt to replace them.

Aaron

Another thing. My inner tie rod is bent, so i do not know how the hell im going to get that tool over the tie rod. I may just have to use the eagle claw trick and unscrew it from the back. I ordered my Tie rod from nissan today, total was about 40 dollars shipped.

I bent, then snapped my inner tie-rod at a rally in June.

I removed the inner from above the engine - removed the fuel filter and bracket and used a wrench with a piece of gas pipe over it for leverage.

Robin

I'm just going to bring it to the shop to do it. I really dont have to much time this weekend or next week to dedicate a day or 2 for my tie-rod. Atleast I know what to go back and look for when they finish it.:-D