Although I'm not /quite/ done yet, I wanted to make some comments about doing this job that would have made life easier for me if I had known them ahead of time. I would have asked but I didn't know I didn't know.... you know?
I used OEM Volvo replacements. The cost difference didn't seem worth the risk of getting inferior stuff.
You will need a number of crescent wrenches for this job:
- 19mm to hold the tie rod end itself (this is actually to hold the tie rod on the 'wrench landing' on the tubular part of the rod end up next to the locking screw. You can hold the flat part of the the tie rod end with a 17mm crescent wrench)
- 21mm to hold/turn the locking nut on the inner tie rod end
- 18mm to hold/turn the locking nut on the bottom of the tie rod end joint (holds the rod end into the control arm)
- 8mm to counter-hold the tie rod end's joint pin
- 13mm to counter-hold the inner tie rod end
- the longer the better, as this stuff is STUCK from all the exposure to moisture.
I highly recommend getting a screw type tie rod end separator as my (very shitty princess auto brand) model worked beautifully. I'm not accustomed to pulling things apart without having to pound on something!
My Haynes manual lists the torque on the joint/pin locking nut at 52 lbsfeet.
Use penetrating oil on all the joints for a few days a head of time to try to make life easier.
If the locking nut on the inner tie rod end is stuck go right to the heat. It didn't seem to take a whole lot of heat to get it to move, but for me anyway, it wouldn't move at all without it. And I wrecked one of my locking nuts trying to wrench it off before I thought to bring the torch out.
When you're using the heat, be careful of the inner tie rod boot/rack boot as it ties onto the inner tie rod pretty close to the area you'll be heating and you don't want to replace one of those just because you were careless with your torch. (btw - I am replacing mine, but it just happened that mine was ripped at the tie-off spot anyway and was looking for an excuse to fall off, that's why I got new ones - It IS a bummer though, because I had the outer tie rod off once, and now will need to take it off again when the boots come in).
I cleaned everything up really nice with a wire brush before reassembling, and I bought new nuts for locking on the inner tie rod as my old ones were pretty banged up and I was worried about the prospect of trying to free them again some day in the future. New is almost always better. (I say almost because I don't know if these were some special design or alloy or something - I just replaced them with grade 8(?) hardware store stuff).
I'm half thinking about spray painting over everything when I've got it all back together for the last time (post alignment) to try to keep the water from freezing everything together again, or perhaps I'll cover with some type of rust proofer.
All in all the job is not that tough, but be prepared for things to be really stuck together. Be sure to set the park brake so there's less chance the car will move when you're pushing and pulling on things.
Also try not to move the inner tie rod too much or you're refitting won't be as precise (counting turns/threads is not that precise anyway and it will make it worse if you start turning your inner tie rod around because the 'starting point' of the threads won't be the same.
I think that's all I have for now!
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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 190k+
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