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Part Details
TRQ suspension kits are manufactured using premium raw materials and coatings for extended service life. Each TRQ suspension component is designed to be a direct, maintenance-free replacement to the stock unit. To extend the life of your steering and suspension components, TRQ recommends replacing components in pairs, sets, or kits. All products are fit and road-tested in our Massachusetts R&D facility to ensure we deliver on our promise of Trusted Reliable Quality.
Product Features
Install Tip: When replacing steering components, have a professional alignment performed afterwards. This ensures proper tracking and even tire wear.
Our steering and suspension components are pre-greased and sealed for long life and do not require the extra maintenance typically required by greaseable versions.
Item Condition:
New
Attention California Customers:
WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including Lead and Lead Compounds, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer, and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information, go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
Lifetime Warranty
This item is backed by our limited lifetime warranty. In the event that this item should fail due to manufacturing defects during intended use, we will replace the part free of charge. This warranty covers the cost of the part only.
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Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet.
Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.
In this video, I'm going to replace an inner tie rod on this 2002 GMC Sierra. This procedure is the same for millions of GMC Sierra, Chevy Silverado, 1500 and 2500, 3500, pretty much all the same basic procedure. You'll need a couple of large adjustable wrenches. I found those work fine. You don't really need the exact size. Two large adjustable wrenches will work.You'll also need a tape measure and you'll need a grease gun with grease, and we do recommend that you have your vehicle aligned after a repair like this.
Here you can see, I have the vehicle up on a lift. Here is my inner tie rod running from here to here. This is the outer tie rod. You could see, I pull this boot down and I pull and what I'm looking at is basically the relationship of here to here and I can see some movement in here. I want to replace this. What I'm going to do is, I'm going to pull out, then I'm going to measure from there to there. Just a shade under ten inches, 9 and 15/16"?. Now, I'm going to pull it back in, and check here. It's about 9 and 7/8"?. When I put this back together, I'm going to set this right between 9 and 7/8"? and 9 and 15/16"?. I'm going to pull it apart. I'm just going to clean this off.
Take a nice big adjustable wrench. I'm loosening that up. On this end, I'm going to put a wrench on my outer tie rod just to hold it in place. We'll get that loosened up. I'm just going to speed up here. We loosened up the nut that's close to the center steering rack and then we loosened up the tie rod where it connects the outer tie rod. Take that nut off for the center steering first and then just turn the whole entire inner tie rod counter clockwise and take it out of the outer tie rod.
Here's a new tie rod from 1A Auto. It's always a good idea to put some thread lock on the inside. If you have your vehicle up on a lift, or a jack, you'll want to jack it up just to get, make sure your stabilizer bars up and out of the way. Thread it in and then use a wrench and tighten this. This should be tightened to 74 foot-pounds. Anywhere between 70 and 80 foot-pounds. In this shot, what I didn't explain very clearly, you can see where that red arrow is. I have a jack underneath the suspension. It just helps lift it up so that the stabilizer bar isn't in the way when you start the tie rod into the center steering link. With this wrench, just pull it nice and tight. Now I'm going to assemble the outer end. I'm going to put this nut on. Then to bring this down on my tire and in. Make sure it's going together straight. If you remember our measurement, basically, we want to be right at 9 and 31/32, so we've got a long way to go. I'm going to speed it up here as I keep using the wrench to turn the tie rod end into the outer tie rod end. I measured a couple of times just to see where I'm at. That is, it's just a little bit further than we want. Knock it off, right there. We've got our one wrench on here and then to tighten, hold on to the outer tie rod, taking that up nice and secure. Now make sure we grease the fitting. What I'm watching, I'm watching this boot here. Once that boot starts changing shape a little bit, I know the grease is in there. Then, while on here. I'm going to hit all my other grease spots as well.
We hope this helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.
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Before you start, you wanna be aware that after you're done this job, you're gonna wanna go to an alignment specialist so that you can have the vehicle aligned so you don't wear out the tires prematurely.
I'm gonna remove the wheel. Use a 22-millimeter socket. Take the lug nuts off. And take the wheel off. I'm gonna loosen up the jam nut. You can use a 22-millimeter wrench or a 7/8 wrench. Just get that loose. That's good. I'm just gonna spray a little rust penetrant on here. And use an 18-millimeter socket, take this nut off. And if the nut doesn't come off and the stud starts spinning, you can use an 8-millimeter socket to hold that stud from spinning, and then just use the wrench to take the nut off. Now you can take a hammer and just give a tap on the bottom of the tie rod, or take a pickle fork and separate it this way. Just if you use a pickle fork, it's probably gonna rip the boot right here. I'm just gonna give it a hit right here. There we go. And now we're gonna take the outer tie rod off. As we unscrew this, just count the threads. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 23, 24. So write that number down. And when you go to put it back together, you're gonna count them to put the other one in the same position that that one was in.
Now I'm gonna take off the inner tie rod end. I'm gonna use a large adjustable wrench because I don't have a wrench that's big enough to fit this. Slide this over and loosen it up. And eventually we'll get that off. Take the inner tie rod end and get this started. Now we're gonna tighten this up with the adjustable wrench. If you have the ability to torque this, you wanna torque this to 74-foot-pounds. Just do the best you can. That's good. Then you wanna take a grease gun and hook it up to this grease fitting and give it a couple pumps. You can do it until you start seeing the boot move a little bit, then you know there's plenty of grease in there. And take the new tie rod end. Get this started. Make sure you count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 22, 23, 24 and line this up in the knuckle. Take the castle nut, get that started. Now, what you can do is to prevent the stud from spinning, you can take a pry bar, just pry in between the knuckle and pry down on the tie rod, use an18-millimeter socket and tighten this up. And tighten this to 37-foot-pounds. And then just check to see where the hole is for the castle nut. And if you need to, you can snug it up a little bit more to get it to line up. And that that hole lines up. Now take the cotter pin, slide it through, actually we'll slide it through this way and take some side cutters and just bend it. Tap it out of the way, and then trim off the excess. And we'll snug up the jam nut and tighten that to 50-foot-pounds. Put the wheel back on and the lug nuts. I'm gonna take these lug nuts down to 140-foot-pounds, and I'm gonna do it in a cross pattern to tighten the wheel down evenly. Just go around again. Double-check.
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All right, friends, so one of the first things we need to do is safely raise and support the vehicle. Once you've done that, you want to come right up front to this skid plate right here. Go ahead and remove all 15-millimeter bolts that hold it in. Now that that's out of the way, let's come right over here to where the idler arm comes down through this arm right here. Remove the 21-millimeter nut.
Now, the next thing we would need to do to get this arm out of here is, of course, try to drop this sway bar out of the way. If your bolts look like ours do, and you think that they're going to be an issue, I would just skip right past that, and we'll come right up here, and we'll remove the whole idler unit right here. To get this out of here, we're going to use a 21-millimeter right there, and then we'll use a 21-millimeter wrench on the nut side.
Right there. Let's put a nice piece of wood in between the frame and this bar right here just to make it so this bar can't go up too far while we hammer on this right there. Now that that's out of there, we can grab right onto this, and we'll get it out of the vehicle. Now, when you're replacing the idler arm here, you're going to need to separate it from the idler arm bracket assembly. When you go to do that, you're going to remove this nut right here, and then you're going to have to try to get something in between to try to separate.
You could try to use a puller, and that would probably be helpful if you have that tool. If you don't have the tool, and you try using a pickle fork, you're probably going to damage this right here, in which case, you would replace the pair, which is what we're going to do today. But I'll still show you how to get it apart anyways just in case you're doing only one piece.
Now, to remove this, I like to have it nice and level on the ground, and I'll put my foot on it. I'm going to have it so it's facing down towards the left, so when I remove this and it tries to spin, it can't go anywhere. Now, that we have the nut off of there, we need to separate the idler arm from the bracket assembly itself. We want to do that without damaging the bracket assembly because we're going to be reusing it, right?
So if you were to look right up here, you're going to see that there's a hole right inside the center of this. What I would like to do is take a punch. I'm going to put this on something sturdy. You can use something like a piece of wood like I have now, a desk, a vise, anything you want. Just be super careful. Come right in here with your punch and a hammer. Let's see if we can get this to come out.
Okay. So that came out, and we caused no damage to this. Perfect. The next thing I like to do is put the unit right inside of a vise if you have access to one. You want to grab on to this boot. Take a look underneath there. Make sure there's plenty of grease. Go ahead and push it down. That feels great. Now, we're going to take that idler arm. Set it right down on there. Take our brand-new nut. You always want to use a brand-new nut.
Okay. So now if I use my 24-millimeter wrench, and I try to tighten this, what you're probably going to notice is the stud on the inside is going to start spinning once it gets to a certain point. Okay. So as you can see, it's spinning the stud. Is the nut all the way down? No, it's not. So now we're going to use a hex bit, and you want to use an 8-millimeter. Come right inside there. That's going to hold it, and now we'll continue tightening this.
Make sure it's nice and tight. That feels great. Maybe time to get our unit back up inside the vehicle here. Just bring it right up and in behind those lines hopefully. Okay, get that in the center link. Let's get this into its bracket. Okay, that looks decent. Let's grab our two bolts. Make sure that they have washers. Put that right through. The other one. There we are. Let's grab the washers and the nuts for the other side. Now, let's snug these up. Now, let's go ahead and torque these down to 73 foot-pounds.
Torqued. Let's get this nut on there. Snug it up. Torque this to 46 foot-pounds. Torqued. And use our locking cotter pin. Slide it right on through there, and then make sure you pin it over so there's no way this nut can come loose. This out of here. Awesome. Let's get this shield back up on here. I'm going to line up those holes. Start in all the bolts before I tighten any of them down. Perfect. The next thing that I would want to do is make sure that I get it down to a reputable alignment shop.
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Hi, I'm Mike from 1AAuto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years! We're dedicated to delivering quality auto parts, expert customer service, and fast and free shipping, all backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee. We've created thousands of videos to help you install our parts with confidence. That saves you time and money, so visit us at 1AAuto.com, your trusted source for quality auto parts.
All right, to find the idler arm on your truck—it's on the passenger side—is to start at the tie rod end and just follow the arm all the way to your inner tie rod and then up to your idler arm. The idler arm is on the passenger side, and it bolts to the frame of the vehicle and to the steering itself. You can watch the play in it by just moving the tire back and forth forcefully with your hand. There shouldn't be any sort of play in between the idler arm and the steering shaft itself. That is actually the problem here. The vehicle failed inspection because there's too much play here. It's actually to a point where it's actually becoming dangerous, because this is actually going to break apart pretty soon. We want to get in here and replace the idler arm.
The first step to removing the idler is removing the cotter pin that holds the nut in place. I think to use a pair of cutters to grab it with. It's usually the easiest thing to do, although I may prove myself wrong. There we go. Then you can also use a pair of locking pliers to pull it from the other side. Then you'll take your 21-millimeter socket with an extension, and I'm using a 1/2 inch ratchet because it's going to be pretty tight, and we'll crack it loose. Luckily it's greasy, so once you crack it loose it usually spins right off.
Ideally, you want to have a puller, which you can get from your local hardware store or auto parts store. You can usually rent them. You'll want to put it on like this. We're using a two jaw puller. It wraps up on both sides of the steering arm, and then the center bolt pushes right on the idler arm. Then in our case it's a 16-millimeter right here, but depending on the puller it could be a different size. At that point, you want to just tighten up your puller until the idler arm breaks free. We're going to be pulling off the idler arm with the idler arm bracket, so we need to take out the lower nut right here and then the upper one right up here.
In New England, we like to spray everything with rust penetrator because we take it off because it just makes life a lot easier. On the front side of the bracket, there's the actually heads of the bolt that we're going to put a socket on. Right here is the lower one. Then up here is the upper one. We're going to use a 21-millimeter with an extension and a little wobble adapter so that we can get on there. It's not the easiest thing to reach, but once you're on there it should stay there. Then on the backside we'll put a wrench to hold the nut in place, and hopefully turn it.
Now we're heading for the top bolt on the idler arm bracket. We have our 21-millimeter wrench on the backside and then 21-millimeter socket and extension on the front. At this point, we'll be able to just pull the whole idler arm and its bracket right out of the truck like so. With the idler arm off the truck, we put it in a vice, and you can see how much movement there is in it. There obviously shouldn't be any. That should be nice and tight.
We've cleaned up our idler arm and idler arm bracket. Both are well used, but we're going to show you how to separate the idler arm from the bracket itself. In our case, there's a 24-millimeter nut on here. That may differ depending on if your car has an original OEM part or if it's been replaced before. In our case, it's 24-millimeter. We're going to throw it in the vice and put our 24 millimeter socket on with a 1/2 inch ratchet because you want plenty or torque, and hopefully we can crack this loose. With the nut off, now we have to pull the idler arm off the idler arm bracket.
Once again I'm going to reposition this in the vice. Get a puller, which you can rent from a local hardware store or an auto parts store, or they're actually not too expensive if you just buy them and you think you might be doing this more than once. It might be worth buying a kit to do this. Then you'll tighten down the center bolt. In our case, we have a 16-millimeter on the top of the puller, which we will once again use our 1/2 inch ratchet to tighten up. You always want to wear your safety glasses when you're doing these things, safety gloves, because things tend to spring off when you're least expecting it, kind of like that. Now that it's broken loose, you can pull it right off.
Here are the idler arms. You can see the old one right here. This one has a ton of play in this section. I think it's probably due to the fact that somebody didn't grease this on a regular basis. Usually, if you put the grease in and then forget about it for the next 100,000 miles, it's going to wear out the inside, and you're going to need to replace the whole thing again. This one obviously comes with a new greaseable fitting on the top. The key is you just want to make sure that you properly grease these on a regular basis, and it'll pretty much last as long as you take care of it. It also does come with a little foam piece on the bottom like the original has. Yeah, it looks, feels, and acts just like the original.
In our case, we're going to be replacing the idler arm bracket and the idler arm, and this is the same process, whether you're replacing one or the other, but we always recommend doing them both at the same time since you have them both out of the vehicle. It's just a really easy thing and it doesn't cost a whole lot more, or a whole lot more money to swap them both at the same time. To do this, we'll hook the idler arm bracket into the vice and we'll slide the idler arm right onto the bracket. Put the nut on there. This happens to be a 24-millimeter. Depending on what kind of part you have in your car, it may vary. The size may vary a little bit.
At this point, we can tighten this up. We started tightening the nut, and we found that the whole thing was spinning, like you can see here. That's why they put a hex on the top of this, so that you can put a wrench here and a wrench on the bottom, and then you can tighten down the nut much easier. While the idler arm bracket and idler arm are out of the vehicle, we're going to put the grease in them. That way it's a little bit easier on us once they're installed. Now we can slide the whole assembly right back in. There's one bolt in place. Now we'll do the lower bolt, which is a little trickier.
All right, with the top, or with the idler arm bracket bolts in place, then you can push the idler arm into the steering and tighten up the castle nut, or hand tighten the castle nut. Now we're going to take our 21-millimeter socket and extension and place it on the upper bolt and put a wrench on the backside. Of course, we want to turn the ratchet in the proper direction, and we'll start tightening up that bolt. All right, then we'll go for the lower one, which again 21-millimeter with a ratchet and extension and 21-millimeter on the back.
Now we have the 21-millimeter idler arm nut that we are going to use a ratchet and extension and socket on. We want to get it tight enough so that it is held in place, but we also want to line up the castle nut with the hole in the idler arm so that we can get the cotter pin through. Now you can slide the cotter pin through the hole and bend it over so that it stays in place. Now you'll see that when we move the wheels back and forth, the play between the idler arm and the steering bracket no longer exists.
Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.
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Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet.
Hi, I'm Don from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.
In this video, we're going to show how to replace an outer tie rod on this 2002 Chevy Suburban, and it's the same part and similar process on these Suburbans from 2001 to 2006. We show you on the passenger side, but the driver side is the same procedure. The items you'll need for this are a new outer tie rod from 1AAuto.com; 7mm, 13mm, 18mm and 22mm socket and ratchet; flat-blade screwdriver; adjustable wrench; tape measure; pliers; hammer; and a grease gun.
You want to just loosen up these 22mm caps, and then pull the hubcap free. Then, you want to loosen these lug nuts while the vehicle is on the ground, then raise the vehicle and remove them the rest of the way, unless you have air-powered tools. Then, you can do it while it's in the air.
Now you want to measure from the boot on your inner tie rod to the edge of your outer tie rod and just remember that measurement. Now, using your adjustable wrench, loosen up this nut right here, and then you want to remove this 18mm nut down here. Now just hit on your knuckle with a hammer and this is going to break up that outer tie rod and make it easier to pull out. Now just hold this nut with the adjustable wrench, pull the outer tie rod off and just twist it until it comes free. We'll fast forward as Don does this. You want to make sure that the inner tie rod doesn't spin while you're removing the outer tie rod.
Now, put the grease fitting into your new outer tie rod and just tighten that 7mm grease fitting up. Then twist the outer tie rod back onto your inner tie rod and push it down into place. Now, replace the castle nut and just tighten that up. Then push the cotter pin through and, using your pliers, just bend the ends of it. Now, using your grease gun, fill the tie rod with grease. Measure, and you should get about the same distance. That's a good preliminary alignment. You should have your car aligned after this. Tighten up the lock nut to hold it in place.
Now replace your wheel and then replace those lug nuts and tighten them preliminarily. Lower the vehicle and tighten them the rest of the way. Now torque the lug nuts in a crossing pattern to 100 foot-pounds. Replace the hubcap and tighten up those caps.
We hope this video helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.
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You want to keep in mind when you're doing this job after you're done, you're going to want to go to a local garage and have the vehicle aligned so you don't have premature tire wear. Take the center cap off. I'll just use a straight blade screwdriver, just get behind here, slide it off. Take the lug nuts off. Use a 22-millimeter socket. Gonna take the wheel off. [inaudible 00:00:34] off this jam nut. I'm going to use a 7/8 wrench. And just take some rust penetrant, this thing is a little bit rusty so let that soak a little bit. Gonna take a 18-millimeter socket, take this nut off. And take a hammer and just hit the bottom of the tie rod to release it from the knuckle. Just like that.
Now when I take off the tie rod, just count how many turns you have. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7...21, 22 and write that number down. Now I'm going to take a large adjustable wrench and loosen up the inner tie rod end. And loosen this up and just slide it off. Take a little thread locker, put it on the threads before you put the new one on and line it up. And then use my adjustable wrench to tighten this up. If you have the ability to use a torque wrench and torque this, you want to torque this to 74 foot-pounds. And take the outer tie rod, one, two, and then count the turns that you counted before. Three...21, 22. Take the jam nut not off...I mean the castle nut off and slide it in the knuckle. Slide the stud part into the knuckle. Put the nut on. Just gonna use a pry bar, pry down on the outer tie rod in to prevent the stud from spinning, and just snug this up a little bit. Use the 18-millimeter socket. And torque this to 37 foot-pounds. And if the hole doesn't line up for the cotter pin, just tighten the castle nut until it lines up. Little more. Should be good. Put the cotter pin through. And take my cutters and just bend this over then just trim the excess.
Tighten up this jam nut. I'm going to use a 13/16 wrench, and if you have the ability to torque it, torque it to 36 foot-pounds. There's a grease fitting right here. Just take a grease gun and give it a couple pumps. And I really give it a couple of pumps until I see the boot move a little bit. And that's good. Put the wheel back on. And the lug nuts. And now I'm gonna torque these lug nuts in a star pattern or cross pattern to 140 foot-pounds to tighten the wheel down evenly. And just go around again, double-check. And put the center cap on.
Tools used
You wanna keep in mind when you're doing this job, after you're done, you're gonna wanna go to a local garage and have the vehicle aligned so you don't have premature tire wear.
Take this center cap off. We'll just use a straight blade screwdriver. Just get behind here, slide it off. Get the lug nuts off. Use a 22-millimeter socket. Now take the wheel off.
Loosen up this jam nut. I'm gonna use a 7/8 wrench. And just take some rust penetrant, this thing's a little bit rusty. So let that soak a little bit. Now take a 18-millimeter socket. Take this nut off. And take a hammer and just hit the bottom of the tie rod to release it from the knuckle. Just like that. Now I'm gonna take off the tie rod. Just count how many turns you have. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 21, 22. And write that number down. And take the outer tie rod, one, two. And then count the turns that you counted before, 3, 21, 22. Take the jam nut off. I mean, the castle nut off. And slide it in the knuckle. Slide the stud part into the knuckle. Put the nut on. Just gonna use a pry bar. Pry down on the outer tie rod end to prevent the stud from spinning. And just snug this up a little bit. It's the 18-millimeter socket. And torque this to 37-foot-pounds. And if the hole doesn't line up for the cotter pin, just tighten the castle nut until it lines up. Little more. Should be good. Put the cotter pin through. And take my cutters and just bend this over. And just trim the excess. Tighten up this jam nut. I'm gonna use a 13/16 wrench. And if you have the ability to torque it, torque it to 36-foot-pounds.
Put the wheel on. And the lug nuts. And now I'm gonna torque these lug nuts in a star pattern or cross pattern to 140-foot-pounds to tighten the wheel down evenly. And just go around again. Double-check. And put the center cap on.
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You want to keep in mind when you're doing this job, after you're done, you're gonna want to go to a local garage and have the vehicle aligned so you don't have premature tire wear.
Just take this cover off. Use a 15-millimeter socket. There's two bolts in the bottom, two on top. Sometimes there'll be a third. Slide it off. Take this cotter pin out. Just use some side cutters and pull that up. Just gonna use a little rust penetrant. It's a little rusty. Take a 21-millimeter socket. Take this nut off.
Now, I want to separate the idler arm from the steering bar. I'm just gonna use a front-end tool. There's many different tools you could use to get this off. Just tighten this up. Put the nut on just so my tool doesn't slip off the stud. It's just gonna use it as a guide.
Another way you can try to do this is use a pickle fork. There we go. Slide that up. I'm going to take these two bolts out. I'm going to use a wrench, a 21-millimeter wrench backside to hold the nut. Use a 21-millimeter socket on the bolt. Take both of those out. Pull the bolts out. Let me just grab the whole idler arm assembly and you just slide it off.
If you're gonna replace just the arm or just the assembly, you're gonna have to separate it. So use a 24-millimeter socket. It helps to put it in a vise and then you can use a puller and separate these two just like that. And take the arm, put the new nut on. Just snug that up tight. All right, just line this up.
I'm gonna have to tap this in place. That's good. Before you put the bolts through up top, just make sure it's going through this bar right here. Put the bolts in, take the two nuts. Get them on the back side. Now, snug these up. Torque to 74 foot-pounds. And take the castle nut, install that there, tighten it up and torque this to 46 foot-pounds.
If the hole didn't line up, you can just tighten it up a little bit more so you can put the cotter pin in. Slide the cotter pin in, and just bend one of the tabs over and trim the excess. Take this shield, install it bolts, put the back in, and tighten these up.
Tools used
Tools used
Brought to you by 1A Auto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet.
Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing and maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20-something years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this, to show you the correct way to install parts from 1A Auto.com. The right parts, installed correctly, that's going to save you time and money. Thank you, and enjoy the video.
In this video I'm going to show you inner and outer tie rod replacement. This truck actually just needed the inner, but if you're replacing the inner, you might as well replace the outer as well. These tie rods fit this whole generation of GM trucks and SUV's - trucks from 98 - 06 and SUV's from 99 - 07.
The tools you'll need are a jack and jack stands, a 22 mm lug wrench or socket and ratchet. You'll need either a 35 mm wrench or a 12 inch adjustable wrench that can go to 35 mm and then you'll need a second adjustable wrench as well, a tie rod removal tool, a grease gun, torque wrench, and pliers.
The clunking noise was the inner tie rod. You can see here, when I shake the tire back and forth you'll see the inner tie rod move but that steering arm inside doesn't move, so you know there's play in there and it needs to be replaced.
Start out by raising and securing the vehicle on a jack stand and then remove your cap and wheel. We're going to remove this bolt. We've got a ratchet. If you don't have a breaker bar, use a ratchet and a piece of pipe. The bolt should come off pretty easily. Take the bolts off most of the way. I'm planning on replacing the outer tie rod as well, so I'm going to use a pickle fork to separate it. The best way to go about this is to get the wrench on it from underneath and push. That should break her free. I'm just going to speed up as I pull that out. You want to make sure that your outer tie rod spins with the wrench so the whole assembly spins and you don't shorten or lengthen the tie rod -- the inner and outer tie rod assembly.
There's your whole assembly out. If you can see here, I've got my old assembly, inner tie rod and outer tie rod, and I want to measure right from the edge of this surface here right to the end. I'm taking my new inner tie rod and outer tie rod and I put them together, just to compare. This will give you a good preliminary alignment. We'll put this nut a little closer. We can put it together now. It will be a good preliminary alignment until you can get your vehicle to a shop where you can get a real alignment.
I'm just leaving my nut right there and spinning my outer tie rod off. The nut marks the place where your tie rod was and then taking off that outer tie rod just makes it easier to get the inner one on. That allows me put my inner tie rod on. Speed it up here as I use the wrench to tighten the tie rod up. Then I can put my outer tie rod right back on and go right up to the nut. Then I'll just fast-forward here as I put that outer tie rod back on the inner tie rod. Now I'm just taking the nut or just getting the outer tie rod in place. Take the nut off the new tie rod, and I'm just going to get some of the debris off the steering knuckle there, and then you can push on the stud on the tie rod and get it lined up with the steering knuckle, and then push it up and in, and start your nut back on.
We'll tighten this up to 65 foot-pounds. Pull a little tighter here and we can get this cotter pin through. We'll fast-forward here as we install the cotter pin and bend the end over and then use a 7 mm wrench and install our grease fitting. We'll take a wrench screw up here. The other one holds the outer tie rod and just tighten up the block nut. Now you want to use a grease gun and grease both the joint for the outer tie rod and the inner tie rod.
Use some more fast-forward here. As you put the wheel and tire back on, start all the lug nuts one by one by hand first, then use your wrench to preliminary tighten them, then you can lower the vehicle back down on the ground, torque the lug nuts to 120 foot-pounds. I'm using a crossing pattern and then I do it one more time, go around all eight and make sure they're tight. Then you can put your center cap back on and you should be all set.
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Tools used
Normally, there is a shield right here, you wanna take that shield off. There'll be four or five 15-millimeter bolts. Take that off, get it out of your way. Now, we're gonna take this nut off. On this vehicle, there's a cotter pin. So, I'll just use some side cutters, take this cotter pin off. Just bend it back a little bit and just pry it out. And sometimes they break. There we go. Now, I'm gonna take a 22-millimeter socket, take this nut off. Now, I wanna remove that stud from the steering linkage that goes through the idler arm. I'm gonna use a tool like this, it's gonna press it out. You can use a couple other methods. You could use a pickle fork, try to get it out this way...that way. Just gonna put the nut on to stabilize the tool so it doesn't fall off. All right. While that's on there tight, I'm just gonna give it a tap with the air hammer, see if the vibrations loosen it up. So, that didn't work out. So, I'm gonna try a pickle fork. Sometimes these are tricky to get to separate. There we go.
Now, I'm gonna take these two bolts out. I'm gonna use a 21-millimeter wrench. On the backside, there's a nut and then a 21-millimeter socket on the front. Get that nut off. Take the bolt out. And just grab the idler arm and the housing and just slide it up. If you were gonna replace one of these pieces or the other, you can separate that nut. Just gonna put the housing in the vise, make it easier to install. Take the nut off. All right. Take the idler arm, put the nut on, take a 24-millimeter socket and snug it up. Now, I'm gonna take this castle nut off. And get this in position. As you slide the housing in the bracket, you wanna make sure the idler arm goes through the steering linkage. Get the bolts lined up. And put the nuts on the backside. Now, I'll tighten these down. Then torque both of those bolts to 73 foot-pounds. Now, install the castle nut and tighten that up. And then torque this to 46 foot-pounds. And find the hole through the stud and you can use the cotter pin, slide it through. If it doesn't fit or if you can't get it to line up, you can tighten the nut up a little more so it does line up. There we go. And use some side cutters and just bend this like this. And then you can trim the excess. Now, if you have that shield right here, reinstall that shield.
Tools used
Now one of the first things you're going to want to do before you start any job is to make sure you're safe as possible. You want to have safety glasses and hand protection at all times. The next thing you're going to want to do is safely raise and support your vehicle so that your wheel is off the ground. Next, if there's a center cap, remove the plastic center cap and that'll expose your lug nuts. Remove all six using a 22-millimeter socket. Remove your wheel.
Now that we have a nice clear view of our tie rods, I'm going to spray down this area right here. This is the adjustment area. Use a little bit of penetrant. That's going to help you along. Using some nice long pliers, I'm going to grab right onto this and I'm going to turn it clockwise. That'll break free this jam nut. Okay, that broke free. Let's remove the nut that holds that outer tie rod end to the knuckle. Now we're going to hit right here on the knuckle to break our outer tie rod end free from the knuckle.
Turn your outer tie rod end counter-clockwise and count the amount of times it turns around as you remove it. One, two, three, and so on. Okay. Write down that corresponding number so you can remember. Now it's going to be time to get the inner tie rod end off of here. Here's the new inner tie rod end. And if you were to look right along this edge right here, that's the area we're going to need to grab onto, and then turn this counter-clockwise to break it free and eventually remove it. So we'll come right under here with our nice long pliers and get it off of there. There we go.
There it is friends. Now it's going to be time to install our new inner tie rod end. You might notice that there's no grease fitting to be able to grease this. Really there is. The grease is going to come right through that hole right there and that'll happen through here, starting at this point right here at this fitting. Put grease here, it comes right through and then of course it fills up the boot on the inner tie rod end. All right. I put some thread locker on here. I'm just going to go ahead and start this thing by hand. Now that we have that, as far as we can get it by hand, let's go ahead and snug it up with our pliers. Bottomed out. Just give it a teeny bit more. Awesome. Let's remove that jam nut. Let's put a little bit of copper never seize on the inner tie rod end threads, and then we'll just work that jam nut up the inner tie rod end quite a bit here. Now that we have the threaded area coded, we have our outer tie rod end, let's go ahead and put that on. And we're going to count it in the same amount of threads that we counted the original one off. That was one, two, three, and so on.
Okay? Just bring this so it's close. Put that node off of there. Put this on there. Let's bottom that out. Now we're going to torque this nut to 48 foot-pounds. All right. So now that we have that torqued, we need to pay special attention to where the slot on the castle nut lines up with the hole in the stud. If it doesn't line up, you need to continue tightening until it does. Okay. So that looks pretty good. Let's try it. That slides right through, just pin it over. The cotter pin is going to ensure that there's no way that this nut can come loose. Now it's going to be time to tighten up your jam nut. To tighten this, we're going to turn it counter-clockwise. When you torque it, you would want to torque it to 37 foot-pounds if you have the ability.
Okay. Just make sure that it's nice and snug. By the time you're finished, make sure your outer tie rod end is nice and parallel to the ground or at least as parallel as it can be. Now it's going to be time to get the grease fitting out of here. Use your 8-millimeter. There it is. Let's clean off around the area. Grab your new grease fitting. We'll start it right in there by hand, and then we'll snug it up, nice and tight. Let's give it a little grease
Now let's get the wheel back up on here. Okay. Now with the wheel barely on the ground so it can't spin, we're going to torque the lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds. Torqued. If you have a center cover, put it on there now. Now that you've finished your service, go ahead and take it for a road test and make sure you get it down to a local reputable alignment shop.
Tools used
Before you start, you wanna be aware that after you're done this job, you're gonna wanna go to an alignment specialist so that you can have the vehicle aligned so you don't wear out the tires prematurely.
I'm gonna remove the wheel. Use a 22-millimeter socket, take the lug nuts off. And take the wheel off.
I'm gonna loosen up the jam nut. You can use a 22-millimeter wrench or a 7/8 wrench. Just get that loose. That's good. I'm just gonna spray a little rust penetrant on here. Gonna use an 18-millimeter socket, take this nut off. And if the nut doesn't come off and the stud starts spinning, you can use an 8-millimeter socket to hold that stud from spinning and then just use the wrench to take the nut off. Now you can take a hammer and just give a tap on the bottom of the tir rod or take a pickle fork and separate it this way. Just if you use a pickle fork, it's probably gonna rip the boot right here. So I'm just gonna give it a hit right here. There we go. And now we're gonna take the outer tie rod off. As we unscrew this, just count the threads. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 23, 24. So write that number down and when you go to put it back together, you're gonna count them to put the other one in the same position that that one was in.
And take the new tie rod end. Get this started. Make sure you count. One, 2, 3, 4, 5, 22, 23, 24. And line this up in the knuckle. Take the castle nut. Get that started. Now what you can do is to prevent the stud from spinning, you can take a prybar. Just pry in between the knuckle and pry down on the tie rod. Use an 18-millimeter socket and tighten this up. And tighten this to 37 foot-pounds. And then just check to see where the stud...where the hole is for the castle nut and if you need to, you can snug it up a little bit more to get it to line up. And that hole lines up. Now take the cotter pin, slide it through. Should slide through this way. And take some side cutters and just bend it. Just tap it out of the way. And then trim off the excess. And we'll snug up the jam nut. And tighten that to 50 foot-pounds.
Put the wheel back on. And the lug nuts. Now we're gonna tighten these lug nuts down to 140 foot-pounds and I'm gonna do it in a cross pattern to tighten the wheel down evenly. And just go around again, double-check.
Tools used
Tools used
Now one of the first things you're gonna wanna do before you start any job is to make sure you're safe as possible. You wanna have safety glasses and hand protection at all times. The next thing you're gonna wanna do is safely raise and support your vehicle so that your wheels are off the ground. Next, if there's a center cap, remove the plastic center cap and that will expose your lug nuts. Remove all 6 using a 22-millimeter socket. Remove your wheel. Now that we have a nice clear view of our tire rods, I'm gonna spray down this area right here. This is the adjustment area. Use a little bit of penetrant. That's gonna help you along. Using some nice long pliers, I'm gonna grab right onto this and I'm gonna turn it clockwise. That'll break free this jam nut. Okay, that broke free. Let's remove the nut that holds the outer tie rod end to the knuckle.
Now we're gonna hit right here on the knuckle to break our outer tie rod end free from the knuckle. Turn your outer tie rod end counterclockwise and count the amount of times it turns around as you remove it. One, two, three and so on. Okay. Write down that corresponding number so you can remember. We have our outer tie rod end. Let's go ahead and put that on. And we're gonna count it in the same amount of threads that we counted the original one off. That was one, two, three and so on. Okay. Just bring this so it's close. Get that nut off of there. I'm gonna put this on there. Let's bottom that out. Now we're gonna torque this nut to 48 foot-pounds. All right. So now that we have that torqued, we need to pay special attention to where the slot on the castle nut lines up with the hole in the stud. If it doesn't line up, you need to continue tightening until it does. Okay, so that looks pretty good. Let's try it.
That slides right through. Spin it over. The cotter pin's gonna ensure that there's no way that this nut can come loose. Now it's gonna be time to tighten up your jam nut. To tighten this we're gonna turn it counter clockwise. When you torque it, you would wanna torque it to 37 foot-pounds if you have the ability. Let's see here. Okay. Just make sure that it's nice and snug. By the time you're finished, make sure your outer tie rod end is nice and parallel to the ground or at least as parallel as it can be. Now let's get the wheel back up on here. Okay. Now with the wheel barely on the ground so it can't spin, we're gonna torque the lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds. Torqued. If you have a center cover, put it on there now. Now that you've finished your service, go ahead and take it for a road test and make sure you get it down to a local reputable alignment shop.
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