[200q20v] Re: [s-cars] front suspension/replace tie rods

[ikessel at amexol.net]

On Thu, 31 May 2001 09:09:23 -0400 "Beer, Jerald" wrote:

> OK, guys need to replace tie rods. Any recent btdt for best price? Usual
> suspects TPC, Blau? others? TIA
> Regards
> Jerry
> 91 200qa

Jerald,

Rod from TPC always has the best prices and service.
The outer ones are available separately and were $12/ea when I replaced
them in my '89 200TQ many years back.
The inner ones were not available separately. The whole assy was over 200 
bux per side.

Before you decide on what to do, do yourself a huge favour:
liberally spray the adjusters with your choice of rust releasing agent
(ZEP or Kroil for example), undo the 22mm lock nuts and see if you can
rotate the adjusters. Keep in mind that the locknuts are one LH thread
and the other is RH thread and so are the adjuster ends.

In my case the adjusters were frozen solid, thus the butchers at a local
Bridgestone alignment shop had rounded both of them off with visegrips
after which they had a nerve to call me at work and ask that I paid over
than $400 more since they needed to replace both complete tie rod assys.
Since at that time I had already replaced the outer tie rods and was also 
pissed off by their incompetence I ordered the car off the lift
immediately and had never set foot in that place again.

Back home I took both complete assys out of the car, heated up the
adjusters with a torch, put them in a vise and released them with a 1.5 m 
long cheater pipe. And a lot of swearing and cursing in two languages in
the process I might add :-)
The adjusters have a fine substandard thread - 14x1.5 mm, LH on one end
and RH on the other. I wanted to replicate them but even my favourite
McMaster did not have a LH thread 14x1.5 die. Damn! 
So I took those adjusters with what? 13 or 15mm wimpy pathetic hexes
(which were of course FUBAR) to my lab where the Engineering had a
personal Austrian made metric lathe/mill/drill combo machine. I machined
new adjusters out of the 304 SS 3/4" hex stock, cutting those
non-standard LH and RH threads on a lathe. Mind you, 3/4" = 19.02 mm so
those new adjusters were not only rustproof, their hexes were the much
beefier 19mm too. 
Put the car together, took it to another shop for alignment and lived
with the car happily ever after until I sold it.

The moral of this story: if your adjusters are frozen solid and you don't 
have a well equipped mechanical lab at your disposal, perhaps it would be 
best for you just to bite the bullet and buy two complete new tie rod assys.

-- 
Igor Kessel
two turbo quattros