Dear all,

Recently my Beast a 87 gl 4wd N/A wagon was hit while parked. the lady hit my outside curbed front wheel hard enough to snap the tie rod. The insurance company want to total her but she is so awesome I was wondering what it would take to place the tie rod. my questions

1. Are there concerns with struts/suspension with this level of impact?
   
2. what is the general procedure on tie rod replacement? (both sides and gear box or only the one side?)
   

 

Thanks for the help! BTW the car got 31mpg climbing hills and ravaging dirt roads when I went camping last weekend! Yea to the old subs!

Easy fix. Just replace the whole knuckle, lower control arm, leading rod, and strut all at once. There's three nuts on the strut top, one bolt for the lower control arm, one nut on the leading rod, and one bolt on the sway bar link. That's two bolts and four nuts plus a few whacks with the hammer to free it from the axle. Replace the broken tie-rod with a new one (about $20), and get a used knuckle with the control arm, leading rod, and strut.

 

The impact probably wasn't all that hard - the tie-rods are just cast metal, and can be snapped pretty easily if you hit one wrong with a lot of force. You may not even have to replace anything but the tie-rod end, or maybe just the end and the inner rod.

 

At any rate, you almost certainly will need an alignment.

 

There's no way the insurance company should be totaling the car for a simple broken tie-rod. Their adjuster is a fool. Rape them for all you can get.

 

GD

Just to make sure that we are talking about the same part, you snapped the part that goes from the steering rack to the suspension knuckle... right?

Just to make sure that we are talking about the same part, you snapped the part that goes from the steering rack to the suspension knuckle... right?

 

The rod snapped between the pushing attached to hub and steering box just inboard of the threads.

Easy fix. Just replace the whole knuckle, lower control arm, leading rod, and strut all at once. There's three nuts on the strut top, one bolt for the lower control arm, one nut on the leading rod, and one bolt on the sway bar link. That's two bolts and four nuts plus a few whacks with the hammer to free it from the axle. Replace the broken tie-rod with a new one (about $20), and get a used knuckle with the control arm, leading rod, and strut.

 

The impact probably wasn't all that hard - the tie-rods are just cast metal, and can be snapped pretty easily if you hit one wrong with a lot of force. You may not even have to replace anything but the tie-rod end, or maybe just the end and the inner rod.

 

At any rate, you almost certainly will need an alignment.

 

There's no way the insurance company should be totaling the car for a simple broken tie-rod. Their adjuster is a fool. Rape them for all you can get.

 

GD

 

Thanks. I will have to look into that but it seems like that is a lot of replacement parts for just the tie rod or are you saying just remove everything to make life easy?

-nate

I'm saying those are all the potential parts that *could* have been damaged in an impact like that. But it's really not many parts at all. Less than $100 from a junk yard.

 

GD

got ya! If I can find some new parts the car could use some new suspension. I will see if I can get some money out of the insurance company! I was thinkig around 1200-1500 for the value? what do you think?

-nate

I think that's high, but then I'm the guy that always pays $100 or less for subaru's like that. I have no idea what john public would consider fair.

 

If it were me, I would shoot for $4,000, and claim that you can't get a reliable 4WD for less than that. Let them "beat you down" to $1500.

 

GD

Just for reference.

 

I got ~$2400 for an 88 2wd turbowagon. That was about 3 years ago.

you can find an entire steeering rack (which will have the tie rods on it) and swap steering racks. they can be had for cheap, $25-$50 and aren't that hard to replace if you can do it yourself.

 

the control arm and strut could have issues, but replacing the tie rod will get you back on the road. if you're trying to save on the expense, drive it and see if it pulls or your tires wear unevenly before deciding on replacing the rest, or an alignment shop may be able to tell you if your strut or control arms are bent, because then your tire would be out of alignment.