'99 S70 Outer Tie Rod Ends Rusted In Place

Post by **E Showell** » 05 Sep 2015, 03:55

So, I've been away from the S70 for a while -- new job keeping me busy. Once I get the cockpit trim back in place and the SC-901 installed, it still needs new control arms and inner and outer tie rod ends. The outers are pretty well rusted in place. Can't budge them after lots of PB blaster and a decent amount of torch time.

Here's the question. If I am replacing the inner tie rod ends anyway, does it matter that I can't remove the outers? Can't I just remove inners and outers as a unit?

I know that I won't be about to count the turns and preserve alignment if I can't remove the outers separately, but if I'm going to have to get an alignment anyway, and can use the total length of inners and outers together for approximate alignment, can't I just remove inner and outer tie rods as a unit?

Post by **abscate** » 05 Sep 2015, 04:02

No reason to waste your time removing them from your soon to be discarded parts

It might be worth the fun to stick the tie rod end into a small container of old ATf and gas mix for two days to see if test unfree see them. Acetone is even better than gas, if you have it lying around.

Post by **E Showell** » 05 Sep 2015, 04:20

Thanks, Steve. Will keeping the tie rod ends together pose any interesting problems in removing them as a unit? I've seen that a rubber boot needs to be cut back to facilitate removal and was wondering if keeping the outer tie rod end in place will interfere with that.

Post by **abscate** » 05 Sep 2015, 05:01

Plenty of room to pull the boot down in this pic stolen from mattymoos rebuild thread

Post by **jreed** » 05 Sep 2015, 06:36

You can definitely leave the outer attached to the inner if you're going to replace both.
I did it that way in the write up linked below and it worked well:

https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... =1&t=58194

: View of exposed inner and out tie rods, ready for inner tie rod end disconnection.; TieRod16.jpg (158.28 KiB) Viewed 1015 times

Post by **E Showell** » 05 Sep 2015, 09:28

Thanks, Jason. I may chicken out and leave the inners in place (110,000 total on the car), but I'd have to be able to get the outers off to do that!

Post by **jreed** » 05 Sep 2015, 10:35

Agreed. If your inners are as good and tight as mine were a couple years ago at ~165k miles, there is no reason to change them. I replaced the inners on mine because I couldn't tell if they were good (due to my inexperience) and I didn't want to have to go back in and replace them later and have to take the time to do two wheel alignments.

Post by **RussB** » 05 Sep 2015, 14:32

You'll need to saw the inner to get the boot off, or just get new boots

Post by **E Showell** » 05 Sep 2015, 14:38

Already got the boots.