99 Regal GS Inner tie rod end

Peter - I was also unsuccessful. In the case of the 99 Regal the inner tie rod end is staked to the steering rack and it would be very difficult to get rid of those stakes with the rack in place. The stakes amount to a collar on the tie rod end that is flattened into respective flats on the steering rack - the collar is pretty beefy so it would take some effort to undo the stakes.

There are no flats on the OE part so the special wrench would not work either, and there is not enough room to get at the thing with the rack in place. None of the local parts stores rent the special tool, not that it would help.

Bruce

From: "Peter"

MY story....

1990 Olds Silhouette (mini van) with 118 K miles. The passenger inner tie rod end had a lot of play... you could grab it and move it in and out.
Reply to
Tim
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I understand....this is a confidence "buster". The mechanic was able to get it removed pretty quickly so I'm wondering how.... I couldn't get him to talk about it....maybe he did have to drop the rack to replace them....who knows...he ain't telling !!!

Peter....

Reply to
Peter

"Tim" wrote

No, actually it doesn't take much effort at all. If you have the right tool, or the rack is out of the vehicle in a vise, you simply put the right size wrench on the tie rod and unscrew it. The hard part is trying to "re-stake" the new tie rod while the rack is in the vehicle.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

"Peter" wrote

Frankly, I'd just remove the rack to to the job. It's not as hard as you either think, or have been led to believe.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

It's not how necessarily how "hard" it is to remove that's the problem - a big factor there is what you have available for "facilities". For my part it's more a factor of how much time the job will consume and the potential to run into additional problems (frozen/broken lines, etc.) along the way.

Reply to
BDS

"BDS wrote

You don't need any different "facilities" to remove a rack then you need to remove just the tie rod end. And yes, if you figure out how to properly crimp the new tie rod in place within that restricted space, you won't have to worry about "additional" problems. But if you can't figure it out, you might have no option.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

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