Help! Tie rods....

[dkpriebe]

I need some help. This weekend I swapped out my springs on the front end. I
entirely removed the struts and everything went relatively well. Today I
started reassembling everything, but ran into a problem. When I attach the
tie rods to the strut and try to tighten it, the ball joint just turns, so I
can't tighten it at all. I am using new nuts. Nothing about this is
mentioned in the Bentley, nor sjmautotechnik, Chris Millers, or ur-s4. When
I removed the tie rod ends, I used a puller and had to put a fair amount of
pressure on it to get it out of the strut, but it sure didn't seem like I
broke anything.  Help, any ideas?

Thanks,
Dave Priebe
Kenmore, WA
91 200tqa 165k his
95.5 S6 103k hers