Ford Mazda Front 12 Piece Steering & Suspension Kit TRQ PSA64939

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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, we're going to show you how to replace an outer tie rod on this 2003 Mercury Mountaineer. We show you on the passenger side, but the driver side is the same procedure. The items that you need for this is a new outer tie rod from 1AAuto.com, a 7mm, 19mm, and 21mm socket and ratchet, a piece of pipe for some extra leverage, two adjustable wrenches, a pair of pliers, a hammer, a tape measure, jack and jack stands, and a torque wrench.

Pry off the hub cap by using a flat blade screwdriver in the small slot on the side. Once you get it started, you can just pull out around the edges. If you don't have the benefit of air tools, you'll want to start with the vehicle on the ground, loosen the lug nuts, then raise and support the vehicle on jack stands. Remove the lug nuts, wheel, and tire the rest of the way.

There's a small indent on the inner tie rod. Put the tape measure there and measure out to the center of the grease fitting, which is 9-1/16" in this vehicle. Then, just bend off the legs on your cotter pin on the bolt. Then just pull the cotter pin out with a pair of pliers. Then, using a 19mm socket and ratchet, just remove this nut. Spray this nut with some penetrating oil, and then, using two adjustable wrenches, just separate it. Once it turns, it's loosened up, and you can hammer your wheel knuckle until you see the outer tie rod move. You can see it move right there.

Now you can pull it up and out of the knuckle and twist off the outer tie rod. Up top is the old outer tie rod, and below it is the new one from 1A Auto. You can see they're identical, and they'll fit exactly the same.

For lineup purposes, ideally what you want to do is be able to remove this without turning the inner tie rod. Our bolt or nut didn't come loose. That's not a big deal, but it does mean that we will need to take this and have it aligned because we did turn the inner tie rod a little bit, but we can still put it back together. We'll fast-forward as Mike twists on the new outer tie rod. Remove the nut and then line up the outer tie rod with the hole on the wheel knuckle. You may need to move the wheel knuckle around a bit until it goes down in place. Once you get it in, replace that nut and then just tighten it up. You want to tighten this to about 50 foot-pounds. Once it's fully tightened, make sure the hole lines up with the castle nut, and you may need to turn it a bit more so that it lines up, and then just push your cotter pin through and bend the tabs in opposite directions.

Tighten that nut back on to the outer tie rod using your two adjustable wrenches. Put in your new grease fitting and tighten it up with a 7mm socket and ratchet. Now, just add a few squirts of grease into the grease fitting. Replace your wheel, and then replace all the lug nuts and tighten them preliminarily. Then, you'd want to lower the vehicle and tighten them the rest of the way and torque these in a crossing pattern to 100 foot-pounds. Replace your hub cap, and we recommend you have your front alignment checked and adjusted if necessary.

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.

Brought to you by 1AAuto.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+ year's experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.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'll be replacing the tie rod on this '98 Explorer same as any '95 to '01 Explorer, Navajo, and Ranger, Mazda B Series pickup, and really this is a procedure that is similar for most cars.

Tools you'll need on the Explorer: jack and jack stands, 8mm, 13mm, 15mm, 19mm, which I forgot there, 21mm sockets and ratchet, pliers, a tie rod puller which is the right way to do it. You can use a hammer but you have to be careful. Loctite, a red or black marker, and two large adjustable wrenches.

So obviously you're going to want to jack up and secure your vehicle. You can just work a screwdriver in there to pry off your cap, and these are 19mm. If you don't have impact tools, loosen your lug nuts on the ground, then raise your vehicle and secure it with a jack stand, and then remove the lug nuts. Once the lug nuts are off just pull the tire right off, and there's four bolts that basically hold the brakes on. There's one here 13mm, and one up here, and those just hold the calipers to this big bracket. There's also a 15mm bolt here, and a 15mm bolt right up here. We're just going to speed through removing those four bolts, and you pull the caliper up and off and you can wire tie it up top and then that bracket comes off with the 15mm bolts, and we'll pick it up from there.

This bracket then comes right off, and your rotor comes right off. You're going to want to take off this dust shield and its 8mm bolts. Remove this cotter pin with a pair of pliers. Needle nose usually works best but usually the best thing to do is just grab hold and break off the pin on this side. It's a 21mm bolt, and actually give it a good tug. It does come easy. We'll put our puller on there. Now you could just use a big hammer and pound this through, but we want be very careful. If you go that route, you don't want to mushroom the end of this, and then it actually won't go through your steering knuckle. Now really this is using the tie rod ball joint puller is the best way, and you'll end up tightening this up good, and pretty soon it will pop. There it goes. A couple of big adjustable wrenches here. I'll fast forward a little here as I try and mess with it to try and get the best angle to both get a good pull on the wrenches and still be able to see it with the camera.

So that's off so now I'll lock this one onto here. The new tie rod does come with a new nut here so what I'm going to do is mark really well where this nut was so that when I put the new one on I know to go right up to where I put the red marks. I'm going to put just a little bit of Loctite on here, some down here, and put the new nut on. You can tell pretty well where it was. What you want to take into account is if either this nut or the length of your new tie rod is any different, you want to adjust the position of this nut. So if your tie rod is a little shorter, you adjust it out a little bit, or if the tie rod was a little longer than your original adjust it back in. So that's about where my old one was.

Now I'll put the new tie rod on, and you want to make sure you hold this. You don't want this twisting because that is adjustment as well, and if you do this this should give you a pretty good initial alignment. I recommend you go get an alignment so you don't wear out your tires too quickly or end up wearing out the new tie rod or wearing out your ball joints or anything like that if you car's not aligned correctly. Start my bolt down here to hold this in place. Now I want to tighten the lock nut up here really good. So I'm going to now tighten up this nut to about 75 foot pounds, and tighten it up a little more to get that and get my cotter pin right through there. The cotter pin you just take it and yank it right around. Then last but not least we'll put in our grease fitting and take our pliers and tighten that up. It comes pre-greased, but you can fill it up with grease, and now we can put everything back together.

We'll kind of fast forward putting that brake shield back up and tightening up those three 8 mm bolts. We'll also fly through putting the brakes back together and your wheel back on. A couple of notes, again, you probably would want to get a alignment after you've done any steering or suspension work like this, and then also just the first time you drive your car just be very careful. You've worked on the brakes. You've worked on the steering. So make sure your car is stopping before you go fast, and make sure that there is no looseness or anything in the steering before you road test it.

If you do want to see putting your brakes back together in regular motion, just check out our front brake video. We'll put the wheel back on. Put your lug nuts on. Get them snug then lower your car to the ground. Torque them up to 90 to 100 foot pounds. Replace your cap, and you're in business.

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

Brought to you by 1AAuto.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 or maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20-plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts, installed correctly that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

This video is part one of a two-part series, replacing the ball joint in this '97 Expedition. In this video, we basically detail removing the old ball joint. This is the same for all the Expeditions, F150s, Explorers, a whole bunch of the Ford trucks and SUVs from this era.

Here's a list of the tools that we use on the Expedition. If you're doing a vehicle different from the Expedition, some of these sizes may differ. You will need heavy-duty tools. You're not going to want to try this with the 20-piece set Uncle Joe gave you for Christmas. This is heavy work. You'll need jack and jack stands, metric sockets 13-27 mm, standard sockets 1/2 inch to 7/8, you'll need a 35 mm socket, a 12 point 13 mm socket, ratchets extensions and a breaker bar or pipe because you will need to get some leverage on some of those bigger bolts and things, pliers, hammer, a heavy punch, ball joint removal tool, ball joint press, large flat blade screwdriver, and a paint marker or a old can of spray paint. The ball joint removal tool I'd recommend if you're going to be doing a lot of your own work. It's a pretty affordable tool to go out and get. Ball joint press might be something that you want to borrow.

Obviously, you're going to start by removing your cap. If you don't have the benefit of air tools, what you'll want to do is start with your wheel on the ground. With your wheel on the ground, there are probably three things you're going to want to do. Loosen your lug nuts. Then there's a 35 mm bolt in the center that holds the axle into the hub you're going to want to take the cotter pin and the cover off of that and loosen that 35 mm bolt. Also, go underneath and there are seven 13 mm 12 point bolts that hold your axle to your front drive. You'll want to just loosen those seven bolts. Much easier to loosen all these bolts with your tire on the ground held in place if you don't have all the tools that I have access to. You're going to want to loosen up your torsion bar. Your torsion bar is actually your spring. This is what supports the vehicle. I'm just going to take a little silver spray paint ... That way, when I back that bolt out, I'll know where it originally was.

Using an 18 mm socket and a ratchet, I'm going to loosen the torsion bar tension nut, or bolt, and you can basically pull it all the way out and then just turn it back in a few turns. You just want to loosen it up and take as much tension off the torsion bar as you can. You can see as I'm done, you can see where there's no paint on the threads, that that is how far you would want to retighten it. Now we're going to undo our tie rod end here. I'm just going to speed it up here. The cotter pin's very rusty, so first so first I break it with the pliers. Then I use a hammer and punch and just kind of keep working and breaking small pieces off until I can drive it through and out of the tie rod end. Now I'm pounding a 21 mm socket onto that nut because it was quite rusty. I just want to make sure I get a good socket that gets a good grip on it.

I've got a bar on here. Put a piece of pipe on it for some more leverage. Hopefully it comes apart. Just fast forward here as I switch over to a ratchet and remove the nut the rest of the way. Here I'm going to put a tie rod, it's a tie rod and ball joint tool, but obviously I'm using it to do a tie rod right now. By using this tool, I can assure that I can just reassemble my tie rod. I won't damage the tie rod by removing it this way. Next, I'm going to remove the stabilizer link, so I'm going to spray the top of it with some penetrating oil and let it sit for awhile. These stabilizer links are sometimes difficult to get apart. You can use hand tools. They will come apart. I just chose to use a impact wrench just to make it easier. I have a 9/16 socket on the bottom and a 14 mm socket on the top.

Use a hammer and pound down on that bolt. Then use a punch, see if you can it to go down through the sleeve. I end up actually having to use vice-grips and a wrench. Obviously, you also want to remove the other side so you can move your stabilizer bar around easily. What I'm going to do here, put set of vice-grips onto this shaft, tighter here. Now we're going to remove the half shaft of the CV axle. As I said in the beginning of the video, these are the bolts that if you don't have all the tools that I have, it might be easier to just loosen them while the vehicle's on the ground. You can see I use a big, large crowbar to hold the hub in place while I'm loosening those bolts.

You can see I spin it, loosen one of the bolts, spin it some more, loosen another bolt. If you were actually doing this with your vehicle on the ground, you'd have to probably loosen one or two of the bolts, then roll your car a little bit, put it in park, put the emergency brake on, loosen a couple more, and keep repeating that process.
Once it's unbolted, pull it down and off. I use a pair of pliers and either break off the ends or just straighten out the cotter pin and pull it out. Okay, 35 mm ... As I said in the beginning, if you don't have impact tools and this is easier with the tire on and on the ground, your other option would be to have a helper hold the brakes while you remove it.

What I do is give it one tap and just watch it, see if it moves. Actually, it moves pretty freely. You can pull your stabilizer bar up and out of the way. Pull your axle down towards the front. Then push it, lift it up, push it out. I've got the vehicle support under the frame. Then I've got my jack right under the control arm. You can see there is the bolt for the ball joint, and then there's the jack. I have a piece of the wood on there so I can easily access that ball joint bolt, as well as get a puller on there. Now I can jack it up. You can see, without that torsion bar tightened, the suspension travels here very easily.

Now I'm going to use pliers to break off and remove the cotter pin from the lower bolt. It ends up being kind of a rusty mess, so I actually use a hammer and punch and pretty much just break it away as much as possible so I can get that bolt off. Now a 27 mm socket put it on there, use a little hammer, make sure it goes all the way on. Got a breaker bar on there, actually you're going to take piece of pipe, put it on, give me some extra leverage. It's coming loose. Just one note here: It will help if you take your tie rod and put it back into the steering knuckle and just put the bolt on. That tie rod will hold things in place while you loosen that ball joint nut.

Just speed it up as I change over to my ratchet and take that bolt most of the way off. While my bolt's still on there, take my ball joint removal tool- This just, doing it this way, allows you to break it free without things falling down. Finish removing this bolt. Get your control arm on up. Pull the steering knuckle down and off.
There's a snap ring that holds the ball joint in place. You can use snap ring pliers. Mine was pretty rusty so I used a screwdriver and a hammer to just kind of pry it off and pop it off.

Now you're going to take a ball joint pulling tool, put the collar up on there. With this particular press use a 7/8 socket, put one on top there, and just tighten down the press. Traded my ratchet handle for my breaker bar. I'm going to speed it up here. What I did there was I created a whole lot of pressure by tightening it down. Then I used a hammer, gave it a good whack that kind of broke it free, and then the press just works it the rest of the way out. There's my old ball joint out.
Good a place as any to end it. Check out part two for the reassembly.

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.