2011 Honda CR-V US Built Models Front Driver & Passenger Side Inner & Outer 4 Piece Tie Rod Set TRQ PSA55482

Hi. I'm Mike of 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

Hi guys. It's Sue from 1AAuto.com, and today we're going to be installing a inner tie rod end on our '09 Honda CR-V. First up, we're going to remove the tire. It's a 19 millimeter socket on this. Now with the lug nuts all loose, you're clear to jack it up and put it on a jack stand.

Here we have the right outer tie rod end. That's this section right here. This is what they call a jam nut, and this is the inner tie rod end. Now, the bellows boot, the power steering rack, covers the inner part of the inner tie rod end.

So after I spray the rust inhibitor spray and let it sink in a little bit, the first thing I want to do to make my life easy is I'm going to loosen up this jam nut. This jam nut, just loosen it enough so that once I remove the outer tie rod end, I can mark my inner, and then take the nut off, in order to slide the bellow boot off. You mark the jam nut so that you have as close as proper alignment so you can drive to an alignment shop to have it adjusted. This, on this particular, is a 24 millimeter wrench. Got to get in there. I just broke that free.

Now that we've loosened up our jam nut, next thing we want to do is remove the old cotter pin. Now, the tie rod end from 1AAuto.com comes with a new cotter pin for you, and that's definitely--it comes in handy. You need to replace this. You cannot use the old one. Now, this is going to be really frozen in there, so I'm going to try to pull it from the other side. The odds are it's going to break off, which is fine, because we're replacing it anyways. You want to cut it as close to the threads as possible, so it's a little bit easier for you when you back of that nut off.

The nut that holds the outer tie rod end to the knuckle is a 19 millimeter socket. I'm going to place that right on. The longer the bar you have, the more leverage, and you can probably break that free. Spin that down. Nice. Now with the nut out, we're going to take a hammer, and we're going to tap it on the point of the knuckle, so this vibrates and pops out. We're going to be careful not to hit the backing plate or the rotor. We don't want to mark anything, we just want to give this a good whack a couple of times. And there you have it.

Now that we've already loosened up the jam nut, that outer tie rod end can spin off. Now, some people will count turns, so we'll aim this at six o'clock. I'll hold the inner, and I'll spin it and count: one, two... That's 12, 13, 15, almost 16-3/4, so 17 will be safe. Now I'm going to take a Sharpie and I'm going to mark the back side or the inside, as long as it's marked where I put the new jam nut on the new inner tie rod end.

Here's another little cool trick to measure the depth that you're going to re-thread the outer tie rod end in so that you get as close as to the proper alignment before you can make it to your shop that you go to, or wish to have an alignment done. You just want to get them as close as possible because you don't want to wear your tires out. You can measure it with a measuring tape, mark it with a nice permanent marker, or you can take some tape and line it up, in this case. Then I'm just going to take a razor, then I find the end of that tie rod end and I'm going to slice it right off. Discard the other stuff, and now I have a thread depth, sorry, thread depth of the tie rod end, and I can match that up.

All right. Now we're going to remove the bellow boot, which is attached to the inner tie rod end that goes over the power steering rack. We're first going to remove the outer clamp, just a pair of pliers, let that hang down there loose. Now if you look inside here, you'll see the factory clamp, and it can't be reused, so we'll have to pry that off and then use a plastic tie to tie down the new bellow boot on the tie rod end.

When you see the factory clamp, it has this little ear to it. You can put a flathead screwdriver and then just pry it back and forth. You're trying to stretch that. Once it's opened, we can see that it's open, it spins around. It'll come right out. That's really difficult to reuse because it's been pinched from the factory with a special tool.

In order to get the bellow boot to slide off the metal that's got some rust buildup, I like to take a screwdriver. You don't want to puncture the bellow boot, because that has to stay sealed from the elements. You don't want water going in there, so I'll just lift that up just a hair, and then I'll spray anything that can break down that seal and get this to move around. We have to get that to slide off. There we go. Once you get that in there, you're just going to grab that bellow boot and give it a good honest tug and get that out of your way. There we go. Now we have exposed the inner tie rod end to the power steering rack.

Now that I've got the bellow boot broken free, I'm going to slide it down. I'm going to remove it completely, so we can really get a good visual of the inner tie rod end while I move it. This particular design has a nice wrench grip. I have a 19 millimeter wrench on that, and my 24 for the jam nut. I'm just going to work that right off. We've already premeasured the thread depth, and that's a precaution you want to take in the beginning so we can realign this up before we get to our local garage to get a proper alignment.

I've worked it all the way down, and I can actually do it by hand and then take that jam nut off the clamp. Now I can give this bellows boot a pull. So, just pulled it right off. It looks good. There's no breaks. like I said, you don't want any breaks, cuts. You don't want that. You want it sealed.

That's the inner part of the rack. This is your rack and pinion. The gears float back and forth as you turn the steering wheel. If water gets in there, it is a rather expensive part to replace, so we make sure the plastic is sealed.

On this inner tie rod end, right in here, if you can see, there's a flat spot, and that is a lock tab. That's a piece of tin on the back that you fold over once it's installed. So, I have to unfold that so that I can spin the tie rod end off. There's one on the top, same location, so that's 12:00 and 6:00, north or south from each other, the two tabs. I'm going to get a nice long flat edge pry bar or a screwdriver and give it a tap. Bend that tab right out of the way.

If you can't get to it, I wouldn't worry too much, because usually the force--I can't get to the top one, but I got the bottom one free. Once I get the tool here to force that free, it'll peel back that little tin lock tab.

To remove the inner tie rod end, I'm going to use an inner tie rod end tool that you could probably rent. Find someone that'll rent them. It comes with several different sizes. I found the exact size I need. That's going to go on the flat edges in here. Then I'm going to place it on, actually, I'll just ... I'm going to place it on. Then I'll line up the slots with the tabs. It has a lock pin, so once that's on, like that, I'm going to slide the lock on. I'm going to use a 1/2" breaker bar to break this free. I'm going to be going counterclockwise, holding that firmly, and just give it a good--there we go.

Then we slide the tab back. There's that lock tab I was telling you about. We can see that the top was still hammered down. I couldn't get to that, but I had pushed the bottom tab back, so easy access for me to slide the tool on and unthread it.

Here we have the inner tie rod end for our '09 CR-V. This part is amazing. It is identical to the factory. This is 1AAuto.com inner tie rod end. We have the same hex for our nice wrench, 19 millimeter. It comes with a new jam nut. Thread depth is the same. Comes with a new lock. That is an amazing-looking part. Don't forget to get your parts at 1AAuto.com.

Here we have the new inner tie rod end that I'm getting ready to install. I'm going to put a little thread lock right here, just a dab, of a light gauge. It doesn't have to be the heavy-duty thread. Just a dab. It's a steering part and I want to make sure it doesn't loosen up.

If you notice on your lock pin, there's two ears on it, so actually, I'm going to take that off and see if I can get it to stay on the rack first, so that will be lined up perfectly. I'm going to line up those little ears on that. You could see where the inner tie rod end, the rack has those. I'll see if they can stay. Perfect. Now I'm going to thread the tie rod end in. Get in.

While I was putting the inner tie rod end in, I noticed the flat lock, that washer, lock washer, came undone a little bit. Now that the thread is closer and it's tight, I'm making sure those tabs are lined up with that inner rack, because you've got to have that all the way in. You don't want it not, so that the tabs are lined back up and the inner tie rod end will push it nice and flat and flush. Perfect. I got it.

Now I can use my inner tie rod end tool and tighten that up. I have this hand tight, the inner tie rod end. I'm going to put my, install my tie rod end tool again, leaving the notches 12 and 6. Going to line up the tool. Lock that tab in, and use a 1/2" ratchet wrench. Now, you don't want to really rank on this or tweak it, because that gear is not meant to be strained in that manner, so I'm bottomed out here. I'm going to give it a good 1/8th of a turn, and that's it. Now we can remove the inner tie rod end tool and hammer down those tabs.

Now with the pry bar flat edge, my pry bar that I used earlier to bend the tab the opposite way to undo it, I'm going to use it to hammer it and flatten it on to lock it. If you have a long brass punch, that'll work too.

To bend the tabs over on the lock, that black lock tin thing, grab a pair of adjustable pliers and you grab it by the ear, and then just squeeze it and it pulls it over. You can get the bottom one, and then you can get the top one the same way. Center your tie rod end in our tire rod. Take your jam nut off because we're going to now install the bellow boot.

Now that I have to replace the clamp on the inner bellow boot, and I use this tie strap, that's going to be too small. So, just like anything, we're going to just double up on it to make the proper length. It came out and now I'm snugging it so that way I can make sure it doesn't fall off on installation. I'm going to cut these off and then once it's in, I'm going to tie it right down, nice and tight.

Now with the tie rod end installed, safety clamp hammered down, and my new ties on my bellow boot, I'm going to slide it in. Quick note before I put that in, if you have any silicone pastes or Vaseline, just coat the inside of the boot there, so when it hits the boot, it'll always spin and it also makes a nice watertight seal, so the person doing the alignment will have an easy spin and that won't freeze on there and twist your boot.

I'm just going to put some dielectric grease or a clear silicone paste right in there so that when I slide this on, it makes it a little bit easier installation. And it hit that spot in the tie rod end that has an indent, so that's why I know it rides. Then I'm going to go to the inner and snap it on. You can feel it lock right on.

I'm going to install my clamp on the outer part of the bellow boot. That's the old one. I'm just reusing it. Now I can install my jam nut. Remember the tape we used to measure the depth? I've got that close by so I can keep matching it up. I see that I have to keep going in further. I'm going to go a couple more turns in. Right there, you can see that I've got it right at the same length as my tape, so hopefully, I'm as close as I was prior to removing the old tie rod end. Once again, that way, you can assemble this and get to a alignment shop safely without wearing your tires out.

Now to install the outer tie rod end, I'm going to start again with my nut of the outer facing down, and I counted 17-1/2 turns or so. I'm going to turn it in the same amount of turns. Now, there's that half-turn, so I'm going to turn it a half back, facing it down, so that it'll go right into that knuckle.

I have my new castle nut. I'm going to start that by hand. I'll get my socket and I'll tighten that down, and retighten the jam nut once that's tightened.

I've installed the outer tie rod end, and I hand started my castle nut, and it's a 17 millimeter socket or wrench, and I'm going to just snug her down. Now, the tie rod end stud has a drilled hole completely through, a milled hole, so I can line my cotter pin up with the castle part of the nut. I'm just using a 3/8 drive to tighten this down, but I'm going to snug it up with a nice 1/2" to make sure I get a good snug fit.

Now with my 1/2" breaker bar and 17 millimeter deep socket, I'm going to give it a good little twist and I'm going to keep locating and seeing where that drilled, milled hole lines up with the castle nut. It's right there. And you'll see the hole lines up with the castle nut.

Now I can install my tie rod end, my new tie rod end. To install the cotter pin, I like to put it so that the round edge is facing out. If you go to do any other work in here some day, you don't want the sharp edge hanging out. A little safety note from my speaking from experience.

Now I'll get my cutter tool and I'm going to pull that down, and I'm going to cut this one here, and I'm going to hammer that up. You can use a flathead screwdriver or a punch. Like I said, I like to mill those right over just so that I don't get cut with that.

Now that I've installed my outer tie rod end, nice and tight, jam nuts on, cotter pin, I am going to tighten up my jam nut. This is a definite. Can't forget this. You can go down the road and that will loosen right up. This, the new jam nut, is a 22 millimeter wrench. The old one was a 24. Does the same job. Just want you to be aware of the different size. Bottom end out, and I'm going to give it a good tug. Now that it's snug, ready for alignment.

On this '09 CR-V, the inner and the outer tie rod end are identical, the same as left side, driver's side, or passenger side. Same job, no extra tools, done the same way.

Now that all our front end repairs are done, to remount your tire, you're going to install the tire. I'll start all the lug nuts by hand. Once we have them snug up against the rim in the hub, I'm going to lower it down, and I'm going to torque these lug nuts to 80 foot pounds. That's the manufacturer specification for this vehicle.

If you're using a floor jack and not a lift, I don't put all the weight of the vehicle on the tire yet. I just make sure that it's got a good amount of weight on it so that I can get a nice flat mounting. And torquing these in, tightening them in a star pattern, assures a nice snug fit. Once again, the wheel torque on this '09 Honda CR-V is 80 foot pounds.

Now you're safe for the road.

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