Dear Onkel Udo II,

Hope you're well. Glad to have helped. Cut-off wheels, especially if only 1/16" thick - when mounted on an angle-grinder - remove metal quickly.

I presume the rack is on the work bench. That should allow you precisely to control depth-of-cut.

To ease removal, make two longitudinal cuts at 90⁰ to each other. Once that strip of steel - one-quarter of the circumference - has been separated from the rest of tie rod end's body, a couple of taps with a hammer should break the corrosion bond.

To do a cat-back exhaust replacement, I remove the clamp to the rear of the catalytic converter. Using a Dremel Moto-tool and a cut-off wheel, I make two, two-inch-long longitudinal cuts in the outer (exhaust) pipe. These two longitudinal cuts are separated by 90⁰ of arc.

I do not cut all the way through the outer (exhaust) pipe to the inner pipe (which comes out of the catalytic converter). Rather, after I've "scored" the outer (exhaust) pipe deeply, I insert a small, flat-bade screwdriver, and lift the strip of metal, and peel it upwards. As this strip of metal - between the two cuts - is lifted, the outer pipe separates from the inner pipe. This takes about 15 minutes to do.

Hope this helps.

Yours faithfully,

Spook