Inner tie rod ball joint grease

Post by **darrylrobert** » 22 Jun 2020, 01:51

Im replacing/swapping a very worn inner tie rod with a used on (pic) that looks genuine and in good condition. Ive bought a universal tool for installing not using the stilson/pipe wrench. Ive watched a few videos and no one puts grease on the ball joint, i opened up my spare steering rack and it has a green coloured grease all over the ball joint and rack?

Question use Green Volvo grease or no grease?

Also like the videos i will probably not be using anything to counterhold the rack, its really not needed.

: inner tie rod

Post by **oragex** » 22 Jun 2020, 02:18

I did put regular grease on the inner tie rod sphere, nothing wrong with that, new ones are greased as well. Careful to get the right tie rod for your rack and don't forget the white collar which goes only on one side I believe (I see you have the RHD car). As for the rack 'teeth' it's trickier because grease can get on the rack seals which I don't think are resistant to petroleum - the rack fluid Pentosin is fully synthetic. I would try with a little synthetic silicone grease on the gear portion of the rack. As for counter-holding, I did read about two owners who got the rack clunking, so it happens but not too often. Funny story, I once found a good looking (new) inner tie rod at the junk yard - I went to put the wrench on it to remove it, and... it was loose, I could undo it by hand. I'm thinking, the car owner just had a garage replace the tie rods and for some reason the mechanic forgot to tighten it - I'm guessing the owner came back saying it's making noise and the garage said, now you need a new rack - perhaps why the car was scrapped (good reason to always have a honest/knowledgeable mechanic)

Post by **darrylrobert** » 22 Jun 2020, 02:28

thanks i believe the inner tie rods are the same left and right?..i will check carefully the part i remove is the same i think Volvo used the same pwr steering rack for a number of years and models.

Post by **oragex** » 22 Jun 2020, 09:03

Same for L&R, just different between the different models of racks. I believe these also need blue thread lock
01-03 with SMI racks appear to have longer threaded section, compared to 04-07/9 with ZF racks. Not interchangeable because the toe cannot be fully adjusted.

01-03 SMI https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo- ... it#fitment
mid 04-09 ZF https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo- ... it#fitment

Post by **darrylrobert** » 23 Jun 2020, 02:26

Thanks, i went to change the inner tie rod today. Removing the boot/bellow i can see unfortunately the play isnt coming from the tie rod, its coming from the rack itself. So i will be swapping the complete steering rack.

Ive basically taken apart a good spare and ruined the alignment, only to put it back together ..fun

Post by **famfeld** » 06 Aug 2020, 20:58

I did this job in January. PM me if you need any advice