A Long A$$ day!
Well, did a couple of things to the 4Runner today! I was planning on doing my inner tie rod, and then a couple of other little projects, but the
tie rod job took the bulk of the day!
Pic of the parts I picked up:
I paid $115.00 for the inner tie rod and $93.00 for the outer TRE, but didn't plan on using the outer unless I really needed to replace it.
Pics of the day's debacles:
We got it done.... messed up the boot on the outer tie rod end. I tried to hammer on the knuckle (as instructed by 2 other guys), but didn't work for me. I then tried the pickle forks the part store lent me, which messed up the boot on the outer TRE. That didn't work either, so I finally just put the castle nut on the bolt again, and just tapped it down. Then I had trouble separating the inner and outer tie rods from eachother, so I opted to just remove the entire assembly as one unit. I couldn't get any leverage on the inner tie rod, and ended up giving up! A quick text to LDForget, and he ended up coming over to save my tail again.
Together, we figured out that if we used a short pipe on the end of pipe wrench, we could get enough leverage on the inner tie rod to turn it. It finally worked, and we were good to go.
Pic of the old inner Tie Rod:
We had tried to clean up the old boot on the outer tie rod, and Permatex'd it to see if it could be salvaged. Unfortunately, it was still oozing out grease. I tried to call 3 different part stores to buy just the boot, they didn't have em. So, I ended up using the Outer Tie Rod I ordered, and the job cost me another $93.00.
Pic of the two installed:
Aside from the cost of the two parts, I payed $10.00 for a second Crescent Wrench, in an effort to detach the inner tie Rod from the Outer TRE. I also tossed Lee $20.00 for driving out here and saving my a$$. He's always willing to help, but living a half hour drive away, is a major pain, so paying him this, was the least I could do!
Now for the one good thing that went well! I removed my 2 year old plastic TRD emblem I got from E-bay for my rear hatch:
It was all pitted, and was looking pretty grungy, so bought another grill emblem from E-bay for $5.00 shipped!
I could go back out and do some work on the interior right now... but I'm freakin tired!
Stay tuned for more updates, as I have 2 or 3 more projects in the works!
