car advice sought-broken bolt in rack-tie rod ends

jvandyke

jvandyke

True Classic
my '98 Dodge Intrepid was for sale, I took it off the market after I drove it last night, steering was "sloppy". I have tightened up the inner tie rods a month ago. Just tore it down again and they were loose again and one of the bolts had snapped off in the rack.
Do I:
1) pull the rack, pay to get the broken bolt extracted, rebuild, put back on market for the $2200 I think it's worth
2) fix it enough to drive to to the mission where they take car donations, I can deduct a bit of the value off my taxes, they fix it, and resell it.

I wonder what a shop would charge for this.
 
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I'm not familiar with the specifics of the steering on that car, but if the problem could be solved by replacing the steering rack assy, here are some options:

Rebuilt rack: $250-$350 plus labor

Yard rack: seem to be going for around $100
www.car-part.com searches wrecking yards

If there were a yard with a rack close to you, I'd be inclined to go with that..they usually give you a short warranty.
 
I read the procedure for pulling the rack. Labor intensive of course. I did the bushing on the inner tie rod a few years ago, it started feeling sloppy again this spring, took it to a shop (I need to stop doing that). They found them loose and tightened them but also found some other bolt broken or something, I don't remember, they replaced and did an alignment. If felt fine for a few weeks, then got loose again. I went in and found the stupid bolts loose, retightened and made sure the locking tabs were good and tight against the bolt heads. Got loose again with a few weeks. This afternoon I confirmed them loose, pulled them out to find one bolt a good 1/2" shorter than the other and seemingly snapped off. Could be the shop did it, or it happened the first time I did the bushings a long time ago. Don't know. How they get loose with the tabs folded down I don't know. There's about 1/2" of threads left on the broken bolt, it seems to grab well but that's probably very uncool. I guess I have no choice but to pull the rack and try to get the broken bit out. I can then R&R with a quality kit.
file_zps5f8d115d.jpg


looking at the intrepid forums, common problem, after market tie rod busing kits supplied with smaller head bolts that the locking tabs don't engage well with results in bolts backing out and failure (of potentially catastrophic nature)
 
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Do you think that's okay? I don't want to sell a timebomb to someone. Maybe if I simply state I've had issues with inner tie rod bolts getting loose in the past and to be aware of steering play, that'd be okay? Maybe I can secure the bolt heads better somehow. I can cut the tabs on the plate larger so they fold down tighter, maybe even drill a hole into a face of the bolt head and a hole through the locking tab and pin it down. That and ample red loc-tite, I'll drive it a few hundred miles, if all seems well. I'll sell it with the above warning; beware the inner tie rod bolts.
 
I agree on the Loctite, it shouldn't let them back out.

Your past experience makes one wonder just what the garage did on the car.

Odd design failure. Pre Mercedes one assumes...
 
It failed due to after-market bolts having smaller heads, thus the locking tabs don't really do much, they back out and disaster. It's pretty well documented on the Chrysler/Dodge forums I guess. The bolts came with the bushing kit, locking plate too, you'd think it'd match. I could have just put in the old bolts and no problem, now everyone seems to know that. Really scary. I tried to get it back the way it was just so I could drive it to donate it or something, no luck, those bolts won't go back in. It's a mess now. I zip tied it back together enough to back the car up 15 feet to be out of the way. Thank God I didn't sell it like that, almost did Monday. It could have killed someone. Pulling the rack and letting a shop extract the stub and clean up the threads is my call. Back to good for just labor. Wife is very not happy with that plan. She wants me to just give it away. Ouch
 
I know the feeling, I have a Passat in my driveway which needs to go that my wife and neighbors are none too happy with. Especially with the arrival of the Miata, we have four cars in the driveway and the three Fiats in the garage

The Passat was going to be the boys car but my wife won't allow that as it is a preairbag car. So now to find the place to get rid of it.

Yeah I am with you on the happy it didn't sell thing, but at the same time it was your family truckster for some time...
 
You got a Miata? We've still got our '91, Now we can tour together, our wives can drive the Miatas and we'll take our Fiats, everybody wins!!
(if I ever make it to any kinda of tour ever that is, which seems impossible)

Full Miata report due now, with pictures (or did I miss it?)
 
Yup you missed it. A few posts down. We were very lucky with the purchase. She is extremely happy

You can come next weekend to the Fiats Up North event the last weekend of September. We will be at the Fiat dealer at 930 then in to the Gilmore Museum on Saturday

http://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/22487/
 
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Why not weld

Just one corner of the bolt so that it can't rotate, but can be unbolted by breaking the weld?

Just my two pence.
 
one more reason to get off my butt and learn to weld

Karl
Can't make FUN, of course, double birthday on the 28th so well, family prevails (which is fine)
Maybe that open house in Fennville? At that guy's shop? Good fall ride that could be.
 
Fennville brings one very close to a very good pie place I have been hankering to try...

Sorry we missed you, it was a lot of fun. Really :)
 
well, that is THIS saturday, out of action again as I work it
(I'm quitting this second job so NOT worth it anymore)
http://www.europeanauto.biz

As for my tie rods:
I went in after them again, what a horrible thing to work on. Bottom line is I got the old bolts back in, one broken but enough threads to grab and torque up, I used red loctite but it's so horrible greasy in there (despite many attempts to clean with degreaser) that I'm not too convinced it helped. I smashed the locking tabs down as well as they can be, even so I don't feel comfortable passing this car on. I would drive because I'm aware of the issue and as soon as I feel any slop in the steering I know what to do, anyone else could just keep driving until the tie rods fall off and the front wheels go different directions, steering ends and you die. Not cool.
No way to extract that bolt end without pulling the rack. I might ask a buddy to try and weld the tab to the bolt head. I think if that were welded I'd call it good but well, not now.
 
Get rid of that tabled "lock washer".

Problem with these is for the tabs to have the ability to be folded up, they must be soft enough to be easily bent. This means they will compress under load and compress even more as the joint load changes under vibration and etc.

My suggestion to fix this design flaw.

*Ditch the Tabbed washer.

*Use new bolts of grade 10.9 or a 12.9 socket head cap screw.

*Use a hardened steel flat washer under the head of the bolt, specially true if the grade 12.9 socket head cap screw is used.

*Increase the torque applied to this joint by about 30%.

*If possible, use a prevailing torque lock nut (self locking nut) on the other end of this bolt.

*Use Loctite 277 (high strength red) on the joint. Clean the threaded surfaced as good as possible with brake cleaner before assembly.

*Steering racks are subject to great amounts of vibration and other similar stress, using a tabbed lock washer is a very wrong engineering decision for this specific joint requirement.

Bernice
 
agreed, this is a serious issue made 10x worse with the after market bolt heads being smaller diameter and flanged so the locking tabs are next to useless, wouldn't be surprised if these aftermarket replacements haven't killed someone.
 
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