alignment questions

[2002_lincolnLS]

the toe on my car is :q:q:q:qed up i just put new struts and and a control arm. my question is how do i adjust the toe? i have access to the al; alignment rack but the nuts on the tie rods wont move at at, is that what i need to loosen to adjust it?

thanks for any help

 

[Andrizzle]

you have to spin the adjustment nut that is on them, it is probably rusted pretty tight.

And Ill say it before the others, probably get it as close as you can to what you think is straight, then take it to get aligned. They used lasers to align my car last time I took it and it was off pretty bad even after I tried to get it close myself.

 

[2002_lincolnLS]

well im doing the alignment i know how to use the rack, but scince i couldnt get the nut loose at all i wanted to make sure i was trying to loosen the right thing

 

[Andrizzle]

o okay, i didn't realize you had the equipment for it.

 

[2002_lincolnLS]

yeah i have access to the rack which makes it so nice, nothing like a free alignment. thanks though for the info

 

[milehighmikey]

Pu a ton of heat on it. And you'll probably also find that the sleeves of the tie rod ends are totally seized into the inner tie rod adjustment threads, so you could be really SOL. I just went through that with my 2000 last summer and boy, did it suck taking those rods out. It might go easier with the tool that is made for spinning the inner tie rods, so if you have access to that, you might have a shot. The way I found out about mine was getting an alignment and they told me that they were unable to move the rods to adjust toe. They finally got them to rotate a bit with a lot of heat, but removing them and replacing them took a lot of heat and a lot of sweat to make the 1-1.5" of travel they had to make in order to be removed.

I just used this stuff on a project called Seafoam Deep Creep and it worked great, better than my experience has been with PB Blaster. There wasn't a bolt or screw I couldn't get working on a 95 snow belt Subaru with that stuff. You may want to get something like that handy for your alignment.

 

[rt2barbers]

Alignment

Most shops do not allow heating suspension components for good reason. You are safer, and it's just as easy (or difficult), to kerf the seized tie rod sleeve in a couple of places with a pneumatic or electric grinder. Sometimes, as much as 1/2 of the sleve must be removed to get the sleeve to release.

 

[milehighmikey]

Most shops do not allow heating suspension components for good reason. You are safer, and it's just as easy (or difficult), to kerf the seized tie rod sleeve in a couple of places with a pneumatic or electric grinder. Sometimes, as much as 1/2 of the sleve must be removed to get the sleeve to release.

Good thinking! My intent of heating the piss out of it was what would be needed to get the junk off the car so that the new components could be installed. After my alignment was done, I noticed a little free play gap in the right tie rod end, so I ordered each side and replaced them both. An additional inner tie rod was also needed before the play in the steering disappeared and an alignment could be performed. I'm not sure if the shop created the worn tie rod end while they were working on it, but it would have been nice to have them point out that there was a bad ball joint at the end of one of the tie rods, instead of wasting the cost of an alignment.

But good point, again. Thanks.