Replaces
Frequently bought together
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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 plus experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1A Auto dot com. The right parts installed correctly. That's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.
In this video, we're going to replace the idler arm on this '96 Tahoe. This is a full drive truck so it's the same as any '98, or '88 to '98 GM truck and '92 to 2000 SUV. Tools you'll need are various millimeter sockets, joint fork and hammer, a tie rod or an idler arm puller, a torque wrench, telescoping magnet and an 18 millimeter wrench.
First, using a 19 millimeter wrench or your tire iron, remove your front. Using a 15 millimeter wrench, remove this front shield. Then, we're zooming in here and this is a 24 millimeter bolt that holds the idler arm on to the steering linkage. We're going to use a joint fork, we're just going to put that right in between the joint where the idler arm and the steering linkage is, zoom out here and then, just use a good-sized hammer and just force that fork right between the joint and separate that joint. The idler arm assembly is held on by three bolts. You can see the backside of them there. You get to them through the frame through access holes right there. You can see my wrench is through one and then the other two are right near them.
We'll speed up going through and removing those three bolts. Note have a telescoping magnet available for when you drop those bolts into the frame as I do a couple of times. What I'm doing here is pulling the idler assembly away from the frame, and at the same time with the other hand, pushing the idler arm up and away from the steering linkage, or actually pulling the steering linkage down. Eventually it comes loose enough and comes right out. This is a 24 millimeter. You want to use this puller and this is a rubber gasket here, pretty much just have to force it into your puller, pull that right off. My new one; right back into place.
The trouble you run into is when you try to put this back together, right back and these two go to the back when you try and put this back together, this is a lock nut and wind up turning the shaft. What I'm doing, I got a big old bolt from another project. I put that on there and what happens this will go in enough and when I hit that other nut, it'll start pressing this on to the shaft. Then, I can use the arm itself to pull the shaft. I put my lock nut back on.
Using a magnet, I took out my other two bolts so I have that top one in. I'm going to use an extension and hold that bolt in place, assembly up in here and hang in on that bolt.
I will put the nut up on that bolt and then basically repeat the step for the two bolts, put them right in to my extension with my socket, feed them through. See the bolt come through, put it on to the assembly and put the nut back on and then same thing with the third one. Feed it through, see the back of my head and then, put the nut on. Before I tighten those up, I'll turn my attention over to the steering gear. Here I pull the steering gear down and on to the joint for the idler arm and then just put the nut on hand tight. Now we'll go back to tightening up those three bolts. You want to use torque wrench and tighten them up to 80-foot pounds. This 22 millimeters and tighten these up to 80-foot pounds as well. Just a little tighter so we can fit that cotter pin through.
We'll put a grease gun in there and make sure we hit that grease footing to get it properly lubed up. Put your shield back on real quick with the four 15-millimeter bolts. Over here, we're just going to put that little pin back into the harness that was holding our airbag sensor there. We'll speed up putting the tire back on. Put on the lug nuts, tighten them a little bit, then lower the car down and torque them to about a hundred twenty to a hundred forty foot-pounds and then put your cap back on.
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 serves you on the Internet and in person.
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Once you've safely raised and supported your vehicle so you can see underneath, you wanna remove this plate. If you take out these two bolts, this should swing down far enough to see right there. Let's use our 15-millimeter socket to remove this plate as well. That way there we'll have some room to get into the front end with our pickle fork. Remove this.
The next thing we're gonna do is remove this nut right here. Use your 22-millimeter socket. Now that we have the nut off right here, we're gonna come right from this side with our pickle fork and we're gonna try to separate this joint right here. If you wanna spray it with some penetrant, it's probably a great idea. There we go.
Okay, so I've got my ratchet with my extension and my 18-millimeter going through the frame holding that bolt side. The next thing I wanna do is remove the nut on the inside area of the frame. Let's do the same to all three mounting bolts. Now let's just push these bolts in a little bit. Obviously, we don't want them to fall out into the frame. If they do, you just use a magnet, you can grab them out. But by pushing them in at least towards the frame. Oh, it fell into the frame like I said it would. Now we can lift this up and out of here.
Now it's gonna be time to get this together. It comes with a locking nut, so you don't necessarily have to use any thread locker. Put this arm so that the stud is facing down, just like this. Take your nut. If you were to look inside there, you can see that there's an Allen head socket, so we'd use the according Allen head. Can hold the center, and then we're gonna turn the nut using a 24-millimeter wrench until it's nice and tight. Okay, bottomed out right there. Give it a couple extra bonks here. That's nice and tight.
So it's a great idea to use a magnet from the outside of the frame and take out at least two of those bolts that are up there. I like to leave just one. That way there it's a couple less things that I have to worry about pushing through as I get this up and lined up. It's much better to just have one up there. I can have a socket with an extension holding it still, and I'll get that one kind of snugged up a little bit, and then I'll start on the others.
I'm gonna get this shaft right inside this arm. That's gonna be the super important part. Okay, now I'm gonna twist this until all the rest of it lines up, right about like that. Now, I'm gonna use my extension from the other side, I got it through already, see if I can turn this in, get it started. There we go. That one's through. I'm gonna start the nut on there real quick. Should come with a washer. If it came with a washer, the washer goes on the bolt, and then, of course, the nut. It's a great idea to use a little bit of thread locker as well. Goes right up on there. Now there's no chance for this bolt to fall out. Let's continue on by doing the same to the other two. So now it's time to snug these up. I've got my 18-millimeter wrench on the bolt end through the frame there, and I'm gonna go ahead and use my 18-millimeter swivel socket to snug these up. That's nice and tight. Do the same to all three.
Okay, all three are nice and tight. That looks great. Let's move along to torque this to 40 foot-pounds. All right, let's do the same to all the rest. Let's get this on here. We're just gonna snug it up, and then we're gonna torque it to 40 foot-pounds. That's 40. Now you just wanna make sure that the slots on your castle nut are lined up with the hole that goes through here for the cotter pin. Once it's lined up, you put it through and make sure you lock it down. If it isn't lined up, you need to continue tightening until it is. Let's get that locking cotter pin in here. Slides right through. Like I said, make sure you peen it over that way there there's no way this nut can come loose. All right, let's get the plate up here. Let's go ahead and get our shield up here.
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