Tie Rods and More

I came home a a couple weeks back just really annoyed with the steering and wanted to check the tie rods thinking they could be a source of my frustration. Here is what I found...

I also noticed that the say bar bushings were really worn out so I started hunting parts. I got the sway bar bushings off Amazon and used OEM outer tie rods. For the inners, there is quite the debate on what to use. I settled on the 555s from Trail Gear for a few reasons. Obviously the price but also the quality. Just doing a little research I found out that 555 is a huge company and even make OEM products. 

With everything in hand I got to work

First the sway bar, get the easy stuff out the way first. Hardest part was the bolts on the passenger side just due to not having much room to work in. There was a good bit of rust on the bar mounts so I cleaned it all up with a wire brush. After giving the bushing a good coating of the supplied lubricant, I bolted everything up and moved to the tie rods.

So, I usually do a little bit of research before I dive into something and my favorite 3rd Gen Mechanic has a pretty good video for replacing the tie rods. The job is actually pretty easy and only took just under 2 hours to finish. The only problem I ran into was the jam nut on the outer rod so was freaking tight. After putting it all back together I took it to Firestone for an alignment and a brake bleed since I could never get it right myself.

After all that the steering does feel better but I haven't been over 60MPH yet. Tomorrow is the real test on the way to work.