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Ball joints and tie rods, oh my!


lothos

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When I had my car inspected last month, they told me I needed a left lower ball joint, and a right inner tie rod. There is a creaking noise that seems to be coming from the right front tire when I turn the wheel. That side of the car vibrates when I apply the brakes, and it seems to have gotten worse in the past day or two. Would that be caused by the tie rod?

 

Is this just an annoyance, or if I continue to drive will the wheel fall off like I've heard?

 

Also, I just did my brakes a couple days ago, and noticed the outer tie rod appears to have some thick grey gooy stuff covering the end of it by the wheel. Does that mean the outer tie rods are bad, too? Both sides appear to have it, but the driver's side is a lot worse.

 

Replacing the outer tie rods is something I might attempt to do, but the inner tie rod with the special tool is probably beyond my ability at this point, and so is the ball joint (I've been reading stories on here about having to cut the old ones off and such). I don't want (and can't afford at this point) to pay the shop rate for parts and labor. If anyone around the Twin Cities area would like to help with this, I can pay cash, or cash/pizza, or trade computer service or any combination of the above. Please let me know asap and we can work something out.

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Gray goopy stuff = grease because the boots tore open. These should be replaced for safety, possible loss of steering control.

 

If your ball joint's bad, well, should it even tually break then the whole wheel won't fall off, but the strut tower will bend in pecuilar ways was you try to control the car to a safe stop.

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autozone has all the tools you need to do the job

 

they have a ball joint seperator fork, a tie rod seperator fork and the tool to change the inner tie rod.

 

outer tierods are the easiest to replace.... get a haynes manual, it should cover these items, and ask for help if you need it.

 

I would also suspect warped rotors might be responsible for the brakes... but start on the suspension first.

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Inner tierod is pretty easy. See if you can rent both the inner tierod tool and the crimping tool.

You will also need to buy a new inner CV boot clamp and see if you can rent a clamp tool (same as CV joint clamp tool).

An air chisel will take care of the balljoint rivets. Or if you're like me and don't have air tools, a $8 angle grinder from Harbor Freight does the job too. If you use a drill, I've heard titanium bits are a must.

 

As far as just letting it go... you run the risk of losing steering control or losing a wheel entirely. That can cause severe injury or even death.

 

On the other hand, my wife went over 5yrs and over 50,000-miles in her '88 Cutlass with both balljoints worn! I also went several years before finally replacing my inner tierod. Again, I don't recommend doing that. Just that we were poor back then and the problem just didn't seem that urgent.

 

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I appreciate the responses and information.

 

Like I said before, this is probably beyond my ability at this point in time.

 

If anyone in the area would like to make some money helping me out, please let me know. I'd hate to pay the shop rates for parts and labor. (their parts prices are roughly double what Checker charges) I'd like to do the ball joint and inner tie rod, and I can attempt the outer tie rods later.

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the outer tierod boots are not necessarily ripped. It could be aftermarket and when you grease them they do leak the grease out. The inner is not a tough job as long as it isn't the 3.4. You will need an alignment. The tierod should be replaced promptly. The noise you hear is probably a "strut spring seat bearing" It is a pain to replace, cost me 50 bucks and not necessary to be replaced. The shaking that you exhibit is likely caused by the tierod.

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the outer tierod boots are not necessarily ripped. It could be aftermarket and when you grease them they do leak the grease out. The inner is not a tough job as long as it isn't the 3.4. You will need an alignment. The tierod should be replaced promptly. The noise you hear is probably a "strut spring seat bearing" It is a pain to replace, cost me 50 bucks and not necessary to be replaced. The shaking that you exhibit is likely caused by the tierod.

 

This makes sense with regards to the outer tie rods, I just had an inspection done and they recommended I replace the serpentine belt, but it looks fine to me. Seems like they're trying to get as much work on my car as they can. They didn't mention anything about the outer tie rods.

 

As far as the strut spring seat bearing... I've heard some noises when going over speed bumps at low speeds. It happens more when there's more weight on the right side, but it sounds like an almost metalic scraping sound. It sounds more metalic than when the guard thing under the front bumper scrapes. Any ideas?

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the spring sits on a disk that spins-- the so named strut spring seat bearing. That siezes up and doesn't like to turn and when it does you probably experience the noise. Mine did not move AT ALL and when I had the wheel turned and went over a bump the ear thing on the strut assemply would scrape the wheel well.

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I replaced my ball joint and inner tie rod. The ball joint wasn't too bad, but the tie rod was totally shot and ready to fail on me. The replacement part, the cylinder on it wouldn't move, but on the old part you could see the ball join inside of it, and it was flopping around like you wouldn't believe. :rolleyes:

 

The inner tie rod was actually pretty easy, it only took an hour and a half. The ball joint, on the other hand, was a bitch and a half to do. Had to get a spring compressor to comress my spring, and trying to fit the ball joint back in where it was supposed to go...... don't even get me started on that. Haha!

 

The shaking was indeed from the tie rod, as the shaking is now back to normal for this car. It also appeared to be my source of noise for going over the speed bump, but I also do exibit that "strut spring seat bearing" noise when I turn the wheel. I'm not going to worry about that for now.

 

Thanks for the help guys.

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