tie rods, oh my!

The last few days have been nothing but blood, sweat, tears and tie rods. Went to swap tires and take a look at my brakes at a friend's house, and come to find out the outer tie rods were shot already. I replaced them a year ago or so...

Well try taking one off and nope, no dice...hard to work without air tools or a torch. So yesterday we ended up doing all four...inners and outers. The inners were SHOT and most likely the cause of the outers going so much, and the reason why my car can never hold an alignment.

Using some ingenuity and a huge wrench we were able to get them off the PS rack, and at the same time apparently flushed my PS fluid (yay power steering fluid EVERYWHERE).

dead outer:


dead inner and outer:


yay big ass wrench:


Went for a test drive around some back roads of Marblehead and man does she TURN! Feels so much better, safer and more solid. Next up, sway bar links that have prevented me from having a sway bar...oh yeah and shocks.