Tie rod & ball joint prep

[Liquid_force]

I've ordered all my parts (TRW & Moog) and I've been doing some cramming via searches here and other places.

I'm getting more and more concerned about the inners.
As most of you are probably aware of there are two types. One type connects to the rack via a male thread, the other via female thread. My moog inners are the female type.
I believe I have a pretty late '99 model. Can I be sure which type I have w/o just tearing into it and looking?

The more I read the more I think I need the other type.

On a completely unrelated topic. What's the thread size of the oil drain plug? I'm finding at least two possibilities.

 

[ThatShoGuy]

my 97 has male ends on the tie rod and female ends on the rack.. not sure if they are different between years...

 

[Liquid_force]

It was a false alarm anyway.
They are male ended.

I tried to delete my post but I guess that's not an option.

 

[Liquid_force]

Got a good start tonight. Rotors off, calipers hung on both sides.

Got DS Knuckle off - quite a chore for me. Outer tie rod end came off w/just a bit of force from the tie rod/pitman arm puller.
Seperating the ball joint stud from the lower control arm was MUCH more work.
I loaded the pitman puller and took my 4 lb dead blow hammer to it probably 50 times. No luck.
Then I wedged a 24" prybar btw the LCA and knuckle eventually it broke free. That was after a 1/2 hr or so and several different angles.
Things are pretty clean. Not much rust. I can't imagine how hard this would have been with a rusty front end.
I found it VERY difficult to pry the LCA far enough downward to get the ball joint stud to clear. I suspect reinstallation may be a pain.
Also, I had to beat the living hayell out of the knuckle to get it off the strut.
The next obstacle was the stupid dust shield. Since it's riveted on and obstructs the use of the ball joint press I had to drill out the 3 rivets holding it. No much fun with a cheap drill and a cheap set of drill bits - prob an hr wasted. I'll have to pick up some stainless hardware to replace those bolts.
Pressing out the ball joint wasn't too bad except trying to decipher which adapters would work best. I ended up using a 24mm (IIRC) socket to press it out. Didn't heat up the knuckle or freeze the BJ. It pressed back in w/o much trouble and the snap ring went right into place.

Outer TR, BJ, and inner TR all were very loose. I couldn't detect movement along the axes, but pivoting the studs on all 3 of them offered virtually zero resitance. The new stuff is MUCH stiffer. The BJ wouldn't move at all by hand.
Incidentally, I noticed the inner edge of my DS tire is in terrible shape. Main part of the tread is probably 50%, 1/2 the circumference of the inner edge is 0%. Great, mo money.

DS inner is back on, torqued.
Dropping rotors off for resurfacing tomorrow and picking up hose clamps for the PS boots.
Guess I'm about 1/3 of the way at this point. Learning a lot though. PS "should" (crossing fingers) go much smoother.

 

[Liquid_force]

Got another 2-3 hrs in today.
Good news, machinist said rotors are dead straight. Speculating one of the old front end components is causing my vibration -- that would be nice.

Both inners are on, torqued, and boots in place, clamped.
PS knuckle off. This side came off the strut MUCH eaiser. In comparison to the DS it FELL of.
Got the BJ pressed out, new one in. No problems there.
The PS axle nut was CRAZY tight, and I don't know what it is about those threads, but I had to use a breaker bar not just to break it loose, but to back it off 80% of the threads before I could finally turn it with my ~10" long 1/2" ratchet. I spent the $13 on new nuts, but not sure what's to gain by using them. Haven't opened them yet.
Drilled the PS dust shield rivets out while I was still on the car which cut that time at least in half.
A-arm popped of the ball joint stud in 5-10 mins, so that was nice.
Outer tie rod popped in a min or two.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to get it wrapped up. Knuckles will be the first item of business.
I forgot to mark the PS strut to get the knuckle placed right -- hope that doesn't come back to haunt me. I suppose I can measure the ht of the mark I made on the DS and just match that. Not sure what to do about the rotational placement.

Anyway, should be off jacks tomorrow, and aligned early next week. Then I guess it will be time to watch for tire sales.

 

[Liquid_force]

in all the reading I did leading up to this job EVERYBODY neglected to mention getting the knuckle back on is twice as hard as removing it.

BTW - how the **** am I supposed to torque the nut on the BJ stud?

The nut isn't even seated yet and I can't tighten it any further because the stud spins.

I see no possible way to apply any torque to it.

Edit: I figured it out. I just had to pry up on the a-arm to load the stud -- then it took the torque w/o spinning.