Inner Tierod Bellow

[And_44]

Hello,

Been searching and feel pretty confident in my ability to replace my driver side inner tierod and bellow. But little confused. Is the bellow filled with a grease like a CV axle or is it just a cover?

Also, it appears to be my only worn suspension part that I can find. The boot is seperated from the most inner clamp for the boot. I'm guessing it's been like that for a few thousand miles. As I'm driving from a stop up to about 45 mph my steering wheel will shake from right to left, about 1-2 inchs of movement. Any speeds above 45 the car pulls to the left and it gets a shake. I'm associating the 45+mph to wheel balancing and alignment. But the 45-mph is what I'm wondering is associated to the tie rod.

Yes, yes, I'm aware that I need to get the alignment done and tires rebalanced but those are point less if your steering and suspension parts are worn or broke.

So I guess my recap on my questions are. The inner bellows for the tie rod do they contain a grease or are they dry? And will a worn inner tie rod cause the vibrations from a stop up to 45mph?

 

[CrazyM]

What I would do if I were you right now. Book yourself an alignment. Yes we know you won't get one right now, or even just book a check out the front end.

Any alignment shop is going to check out your front end before doing an alignment so they will tell you exactly what you need. By you saying you have done some searching and feel pretty confident... Do you trust yourself to install a VITAL steering component? If you have any doubts in your mind I would get a shop to do it. It should be about a 1\2 hours time..

And no the boot is not filled with grease. If there is any fluid in it at all it means your rack is leaking.

 

[ranger87]

No grease in the inner tie rod bellow boot. Its only there to keep road junk off the inner tie rod. If your steering wheel is shaking that bad at low speed and pulling at high speed, i would check for a separated tire. An alignment wont cause shake. But yes if you change the boot get it realigned afterwards and if your car has higher miles change the inner and outter tie rods (but not necessary)while your in there, no point in wasting time twice .

 

[And_44]

Yea, the outer rods where changed about 7months ago there new. CV axles where changed same time as tie rod ends. The passenger inner tie rod appears to be new or in good condition. The driver though is old and boot is totally seperated.

Also, yes I feel very confident in doing this. I do consider myself to be pretty mechanically inclined. I work on aircraft for my main living and this is just a hobby, big differnce between aircraft and planes but a grease monkey is a grease monkey;D Yea, every time I do something for the first time I always research as much as I can find and ask what I can't find. The nut on the inner part seems to be the only difficult part. And it's dry, no fluid anywhere around the boot or joint.

But yea, I'll bring it into Les Schwab they do free suspension inspections. I don't feel it's that vital a component, only real vital component I don't like working on are transmissions and ABS. I believe the knowledge is more valuable then paying someone 70-100 bucks an hour to do the work.

The tires are older have good thread, but appear to be in good condition. I had a bad tire on my VW once, had a nice bubble on thread, but this feels NOTHING like that did. It's just the steering wheel that has any movement. The dash and butt meter don't move at all pretty steady. When I had that bad tire on my VW the whole dash would vibrate so much it would rattle. It was a '02 Passat and if you've ever been in one of those you'll know that any type of vibration like that in one of those is a bad sign.

Though when the previous owner did the tie rod ends and cv axles don't know if they took it in for a true alignment and balancing.