Serge944

As for the u-joints, some play in them is normal, right? I inpected those as well and they seem fine. The sound is distinctly coming from the passenger side so I blame it on that tie rod.

Luis de Prat

Does your horn work without interruption? If it does, I wouldn't worry about the steering shaft. It serves as the ground for the horn, and when there's too much play in the U-joints, the horn works intermittently.

As for R&R'ing the tie rod assemblies, what kind of steering rack to you have? Manual or power? I've overhauled my manual rack and changed the assemblies, and all you really need on the manual rack are some large open end wrenches - 27mm and 32mm, to be precise.

You should be able to take out the tie rod assemblies yourself, however, people often put glue on the threads when they replace them, and this will make it impossible to get them out without heating the lugs up with a blow torch. If yours are original equipment, there probably won't be any glue in there and no probs getting them out.

The other problem is that the 32mm wrench must be thin enough to fit in the grooves on the assembly lugs to tighten them onto the steering rack. I found the Craftsman wrenches to be too thick. Michael Manning recommended a bicycle tool brand, which makes a 32mm that's thin enough - "Park" something - check the archives for "manual steering," etc.

Other handy tools are a pickle fork, to pop the tie rod ends out of the steering knuckles, assorted metric sockets, etc. You will have to remove the swaybar, so it's a good time to check the bushings on it.

As for parts, the assemblies for manual steering are made by "Lemforder." I've gone through 2 sets already. The first were Lemforder, and the second, which I found on eBay were OE.

HTH

M758

I assume you have fluid in the power steering system right?


I had leak in mine and it made an awful noise when it ran dry.

Elephant Chuck

No, play in the U joints is not correct.

Serge944

I have a power rack, and of course it has power steering fluid. The noise you get when youre low is more of a deep hum.

jc22

As another possibility you may want to check your upper strut bearings. I know they will click and clunk if they're bad.