Kurtis,
I had a heck of a time postitioning and securing my brand new TR4 steering
rack boots and I had the entire rack assembly up on the workbench! With your
rack in the car I don't envy your task.
It might be better not to undo anything and just focus on getting the large
open ends back onto the rack tube ends - use a securing wire (baling wire or
similar) on pinion gear casting side (see manual photos) and a hose clamp on
plain tube side.
Part of my difficulty was I greased the innards pretty well and ended up
wrestling with what seemed like two fully greased piglets! and very stubborn
ones at that. The room for error 'fit-wise' is minimal and it took me several
frustrating attempts over a couple days to finally get them fitted so that I
could turn the rack from end-to-end with perfect accordianing and no bunching
or kinking.
I found the boots are very important - my right one had beeb torn open for
several years and that tie-rod ball-joint was wasted (1/8 inch of sloppy
play) whereas the other side with intact boot was in excellent condition and
still very close to original factory tolerance).
Ps; if you firmly pull back and forth on tie rods and feel movement more than
the thickness of a piece of xerox paper (about 3 thousandths of an inch) -
your ball joints have more free play than factory specs and may need shims
added to take up the wear (a bit of a job in itself - but then again, I drove
my car for years with 1/8" slop and didn't even have a clue!)
Good luck with it,
Carl
'63 TR4 since '74 - CT22326L
Subject: Tie Rod End Piece - TR4
Arrggghhh...
Okay, you guys are probably going to get sick of me before this is all over
(or wonder what the heck I'm doing trying to fix this thing myself).
Anyway... while I had the front wheels off, I noticed a couple of things that
needed attention. One problem was that the rubber gaiters on the tie rod end
pieces had come off (the retainer clips are missing). I wanted to get them
off, and see if I could reposition the gaiter and maybe secure it back on with
a clip of some sorts. The gaiters don't appear to be torn, and the ball joint
assemblies themselves seem fine.
Now my problem... How the heck do you get these things off??? I removed the
nut at the bottom of them (that I assumed held them in place attached to the
tie rod lever), and I tried tapping them lightly (and not so lightly) to coax
them up and out of the tie rod lever. Neither one of them would budge. Are
they just stuck, or am I missing something? I obviously don't want to bang
around too hard on my steering/suspension components... Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Kurtis J.
1963 TR4
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