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MG MGB Technical - Tricky tie rod

I will start this story by admitting I am not the most confident mechanic around, and it doesn't take too much for me to call the pro, but I want to get better at it and have the fun of being able to handle more myself. I had an interesting issue with the my 71 mgb roadster car this spring. Last year when I put the car up for the winter I noticed a rip in the boot on the driver's side of the steering rack. The wheels had to be turned just right before you could notice. I knew there was supposed to be some oil in there which obviously had disappeared out the rip. So I ordered replacement boots, and 1 tie rod end just in case I buggered one in removal. I lined my buddy up about 10 days ago to help me with the confidence and repair.

That's when the fun started. The first evening we budgeted about 2 hours to R and R both boots. After 3 hours we were nowhere. We absolutely could not get the tie rod end off the shaft. We buttoned it back up and set aside a whole evening which turned out to be last Thursday. In the interval, I applied liberal amounts of penetrating oil to both sides hoping it would do the trick. Thursday came and no luck. Despite two torches, pipe extensions on the end of wrenches, hammering both sides of the tie rod end at the same time - nothing was going to get the driver side free. Meanwhile the extreme heat ruined the tie rod end by melting all the embedded grease. We were pretty much screwed so decided that to get that tie rod end off, we had to remove the tie rod complete with seized end. This requires you to disassemble the entire rack. Fortunately I had picked up for free, a spare front cross member complete with steering assembly a few years ago, so we could put it on the bench and figure out how to get it apart. I was pretty well crapping my drawers by this time as all that was happening was the destruction of my car. After disassembly of both the spare rack, and the rack on the car, we cleaned up the spare tierod, put my brand new tie rod end on it, re-installed the tie rod in the rack, installed the new boot and voila! One side done!

The passenger side must have benefited from all the penetrating oil, because it came apart easily at no harm to the perfectly serviceable tie rod end. Installed the new boot on that side, took out the central piston that seems to serve as a damper to the rack and installed 6 ounces of hypoid gear oil. I am glad I did all this as the rack was dry and no doubt would have caused bigger problems if not addressed. What an adventure. Incidentally, even with the tie rod removed from the car and placed in a large vice, we still could not un-seize the end. Amazing. I think if I had taken this in to a shop I would be out a few hundred dollars. It is in today for an alignment as my steering wheel is a little off centre, and no doubt the proper alignment has been lost. Other than that the old bomb is running great.

There is something kind of macho about overcoming and doing it yourself.

Glen N

Savour the victory Glen !
Al
Al McMillan

Went through that last summer. Same situation. I finally got the nut off using a small cutoff wheel and a pnumatic drill. The passenger side slid right off. Go figure. Unfortunately I got a case of the might as wells and completely replaced all of the perishable rubber parts on the front end. Instead of spending 1 weekend, it took 3. One day it will be worth it. But then again, thearpy with the car is cheaper than with a shrink.
Cris DeYoung

Hi,
I am going through the same thing. I needed to align my steering, the wheel was way off center as the car went straight. Well, I loosen the one tie rod easy and the side the bolt was stiff for a couple turns, then it was stuck in both directions. So what was the best thing to do to loosen the bolt, I was about to heat it with a torch, but sounds like it didn't work for you, Glen.
As far as alignment with the steering column, Glen, since you have loosened off and replace parts it should be easy now to align the steering. Ease off the bolts on the tie rods, decide which way you need to move the wheel and rotate the tie rod either in toward the bolt or out. I found when doing this, that the wheels where not properly set up either, with respect to toe in. The one wheel was toed out severely and the other slighty. I got the most of the problems solved with the amount i could move the one stuck bolt , but I realy need to loosen it more to get it just right. I have the one wheel good , the other is straight forward, no toe in.
Thanks,
Gordon
Gordon Thompson

This thread was discussed between 27/05/2003 and 31/05/2003

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