ahofam123

Today when I was reassembling my front suspension, the driver's side tie-rod end broke in that when I try to tighten the castle nut, the tie-rod spins. My question is, should I just buy the tie rod ends or should I buy the whole tie rod assembly? The boots on both inner tie rods are intact and they feel like they are well greased, but is there a way that I could test the inner tie rods to see how much longer a life span they have? Thanks in advance.

Skip

I may be misunderstanding what you mean by broke. The castle nut may bind on the threads enough to cause the ball joint to spin while trying to tighten. This is okay - you just need to apply pressure to the ball joint enough to bind it and allow the castle nut to get tight (to recommend TQ). That joint should spin freely but the castle nut should lock the pin into the spindle.

W88951

To put the ball of the Tie Rod end into a bind, place your car on Jackstands. Then, place the floor jack under the Tie Rod end. Hopefully you have it attached to the spindle. Apply pressure to the bottom of the Tie Rod end until you are able to tighten or loosen the nut, whichever you are attempting to do.

Good luck.

Stan944

FYI:
if you buy a tie rod end only, make sure the coupling between the tie rod end and the tie rod is of correct gender (e.g. the set from Vertex is opposite to the original one). They both work, but can't mix'n'match them.
Stan

ahofam123

Thanks for the responses. I installed the passenger side tie rod end and the castle nut went on without the spindle spinning at all so I guess that when the driver's side spindle spun around with the castle nut, I thought that it was broken. The passenger tie rod end is still ok even though the spindle didn't move with the castle nut, isn't it?

Skip

Yes, it's still okay - luck of the draw when installing these... some are easy, some are not.

ahofam123

Thanks again.