Help! Tie rods....

[ben swann]

Dave,

Tie-Rod ends - PITA!

What has worked for me:  Clean hole throuroughly with wire-brush -->
shaft and hole with alcohol/carb-cleaner to get off grease.  Then apply
red locktite to the shaft(blue will do, but red locks tighter).  Insert
ball-joint into hole and clamp with vice-grips, C-clamp - this is
tricky, but you'll find something to hold them together tightly.  Let
set for 15 minutes or so.

The lock-tite will setup, allowing you to turn the nut down.  If you
can leave the clamp on, but not always possible, but lock-tite should
hold.  I have had several successes with this techique and it has never
failed. This is not usually necessary with new tie-rods, but almost
always when re-using them, if you could get it out without a pickle-
fork when MAPP torch works not.

Ben
DIYer for Quattro's and things mechanical/electrical and......

[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]