Steering Work

9/20/2010 to 9/22/2010

The inner tie rod end on the drivers side has a little play in it. No better time to change it than when everything is already out of the way.

I picked these up on e-Bay a couple years ago. I only need one. Now I will have to keep my eye open for another set. These are getting rare and expensive so buy early and stash for later.

That was easy. I marked the tie rod so the overall length is the same as it was with the old end. But an alignment is the first thing on the agenda after I am done anyway.

This is the pitman arm on the steering box. To prevent vibrations from going back up though the steering wheel the pitman arm bolts to the steering gear via 4 rubber isolators. These are visibly loose. Not a lot but it will never be easier to fix than now. The sheet metal engine pan above has to come out first so I can get to the bolts. No room for my impact wrench here! One cotter pin was rusted badly enough that it came out in bits. I got lucky and fished the ends out of the hole.

Got it out! The isolation bushings have a steel core and one of them is rusted onto the pin. I will get that off tomorrow. Getting late!
I had new isolation bushings in my parts stash. These are older but the rubber is still pliable and the new ones look a LOT better than the old ones on the bottom. You can see one of the steel cores that came out of the old bushing.

The last steel core did not give up without a struggle. I used a chisel to carefully cut it loose. I then cleaned the pins up with a wire brush and steel wool.

Time to reassemble. New bushing on the pins, pins in the pitman arm, bushings on top, then the washer, nut, and new cotter pins. The steering is now as good as I can make it.