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ProjectGS DIY: Inner Tie Rod Replacement. Possibly cure to your tirewear problems!
#46
Pole Position
Join Date: May 2009
Location: CA Bay Area
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Update! I have 2001 Gs430 with l tuned shocks and tanabe springs.
Throughout the last 2 years I have done the following to my suspension and steering in conjunction with shaky steering wheel and to improve overall handling:
1) lower ball joints - more to have a peace of mind that they don't break
2) all new tires, tires balanced twice and about 3-4 alignments
3) steering rack daizen bushings - made very light improvement in shaking and handling
4) all front suspension daizen bushings - mad big improvement in HANDLING but NOT IN steering wheel shake
5) pretensioner adjusted
After all of these repairs/adjustments, my overall handling improved a lot but I still had random steering wheel shake at roughly 70-75mph.
Anyways... I recently decided to give these a shot and so I bought new inner AND outer tie rod ends by Moog. Paid roughly $100 for all of them from rockauto.
I replaced them yesterday and took car for alignment this morning.
After alignment I took it to Sacramento back and forth (driving 60-85mph, total about 90 miles) and so far NO SHAKING AT ALL!!!
I'm really excited so far and hopefully this won't change. Steering wheel and front suspension has never felt this good before. It really feels like BMW's steering now.
Jeff thanks for your diy and therefore for motivating me to change them out
I will keep you all posted if anything changes but for now just enjoying my shake-free steering and finally solid front end suspension!!!
Throughout the last 2 years I have done the following to my suspension and steering in conjunction with shaky steering wheel and to improve overall handling:
1) lower ball joints - more to have a peace of mind that they don't break
2) all new tires, tires balanced twice and about 3-4 alignments
3) steering rack daizen bushings - made very light improvement in shaking and handling
4) all front suspension daizen bushings - mad big improvement in HANDLING but NOT IN steering wheel shake
5) pretensioner adjusted
After all of these repairs/adjustments, my overall handling improved a lot but I still had random steering wheel shake at roughly 70-75mph.
Anyways... I recently decided to give these a shot and so I bought new inner AND outer tie rod ends by Moog. Paid roughly $100 for all of them from rockauto.
I replaced them yesterday and took car for alignment this morning.
After alignment I took it to Sacramento back and forth (driving 60-85mph, total about 90 miles) and so far NO SHAKING AT ALL!!!
I'm really excited so far and hopefully this won't change. Steering wheel and front suspension has never felt this good before. It really feels like BMW's steering now.
Jeff thanks for your diy and therefore for motivating me to change them out
I will keep you all posted if anything changes but for now just enjoying my shake-free steering and finally solid front end suspension!!!
Last edited by krispl; 01-03-12 at 03:29 PM.
#48
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: GA
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Just wondering if your alignment is still fine. My tires are having exessive wear after 5 months of an alignment. Took it to the shop today and they said the passenger side is bad and the driver side should be replaced too but don't look as bad. Thanks for your feedback and DYI.
#49
Glad this guide helped you guys out.
Jedi, yes my alignment is good now. These cars have very sensitive suspension geometry especially when lowered. Every ounce you can get the suspension tighter and closer to new will help with alignment and tirewear. Really, it's this way for most any car out there but this car is especially susceptible to these tire wear issues.
Jedi, yes my alignment is good now. These cars have very sensitive suspension geometry especially when lowered. Every ounce you can get the suspension tighter and closer to new will help with alignment and tirewear. Really, it's this way for most any car out there but this car is especially susceptible to these tire wear issues.
#51
IMPORTANT UPDATE!
My alignment was a bit better after replacing inner the tie rod, but toe alignment would randomly drift out of spec after a while. I took it to my friend that works at Lexus and we put it up on the lift to check everything out. He even got a few of the senior techs out there to come to try and diagnose the problem. Well, turns out it was something extremely stupid. The camber adjustment eccentric bolt needs to be REALLY cranked down. The senior tech told him to get a 3ft long breaker bar and just lay into it.
I didn't want to bug my friend at Lexus because they usually have to stay after hours to work on personal cars or on cars not coming through the shop. So I had firestone do my alignment previously because I also have the lifetime alignment plan with them so it was free. Their(Firestone) problem was that they didn't crank the camber bolt down enough and it caused the camber to drift around every time I would hit a major bump. Some days the toe would be in and some days it would be out. They would set the camber and toe dead on according to the Hunter alignment machine, but I guess the tech didn't crank the bolt down tight enough. My friend cranked the bolt down, we threw it back on the alignment machine, and then dialed in all the settings to perfect. After that, I haven't had a single problem and I've been driving it hard for a while now since we've set the alignment.
So, for you guys that are getting whacky alignments that drift out of spec after a few days or weeks...MAKE SURE you check that camber bolt!!!! I've gone though 3-4 sets of tires and replaced every possible balljoint/bushing trying to figure out the stupid problem!
Update: Posted picture of camber bolt location.
My alignment was a bit better after replacing inner the tie rod, but toe alignment would randomly drift out of spec after a while. I took it to my friend that works at Lexus and we put it up on the lift to check everything out. He even got a few of the senior techs out there to come to try and diagnose the problem. Well, turns out it was something extremely stupid. The camber adjustment eccentric bolt needs to be REALLY cranked down. The senior tech told him to get a 3ft long breaker bar and just lay into it.
I didn't want to bug my friend at Lexus because they usually have to stay after hours to work on personal cars or on cars not coming through the shop. So I had firestone do my alignment previously because I also have the lifetime alignment plan with them so it was free. Their(Firestone) problem was that they didn't crank the camber bolt down enough and it caused the camber to drift around every time I would hit a major bump. Some days the toe would be in and some days it would be out. They would set the camber and toe dead on according to the Hunter alignment machine, but I guess the tech didn't crank the bolt down tight enough. My friend cranked the bolt down, we threw it back on the alignment machine, and then dialed in all the settings to perfect. After that, I haven't had a single problem and I've been driving it hard for a while now since we've set the alignment.
So, for you guys that are getting whacky alignments that drift out of spec after a few days or weeks...MAKE SURE you check that camber bolt!!!! I've gone though 3-4 sets of tires and replaced every possible balljoint/bushing trying to figure out the stupid problem!
Update: Posted picture of camber bolt location.
Last edited by JeffTsai; 01-16-12 at 10:13 PM.
#55
IMPORTANT UPDATE! ~~ My results 4 months after this post
My alignment was a bit better after replacing the inner tie rod, but toe alignment would randomly drift out of spec after a while. I took it to my friend that works at Lexus and we put it up on the lift to check everything out. He even got a few of the senior techs out there to come to try and diagnose the problem. Well, turns out it was something extremely stupid. The camber adjustment eccentric bolt needs to be REALLY cranked down. The senior tech told him to get a 3ft long breaker bar and just lay into it.
I didn't want to bug my friend at Lexus because they usually have to stay after hours to work on personal cars or on cars not coming through the shop. So I had firestone do my alignment previously because I also have the lifetime alignment plan with them so it was free. Their(Firestone) problem was that they didn't crank the camber bolt down enough and it caused the camber to drift around every time I would hit a major bump. Some days the toe would be in and some days it would be out. They would set the camber and toe dead on according to the Hunter alignment machine, but I guess the tech didn't crank the bolt down tight enough. My friend cranked the bolt down, we threw it back on the alignment machine, and then dialed in all the settings to perfect. After that, I haven't had a single problem and I've been driving it hard for a while now since we've set the alignment.
So, for you guys that are getting whacky alignments that drift out of spec after a few days or weeks...MAKE SURE you check that camber bolt!!!! I've gone though 3-4 sets of tires and replaced every possible balljoint/bushing trying to figure out the stupid problem!
I brought my car in cause I was hearing cracking noises, like with a lower ball joint issue, but my LBJ's are new. Turns out my camber bolt was also loose after a Firestone lifetime alignment. My mechanic tightened it. Did you hear any noises as your camber bolt was loose?
#56
No noises with mine, but it was just barely loose enough to allow the camber to jump around every time I would hit a major bump. That's why I couldn't diagnose it myself. If there was a weird noise then I would of known to look around for it, but mine had no noises at all.
#57
No noises with mine, but it was just barely loose enough to allow the camber to jump around every time I would hit a major bump. That's why I couldn't diagnose it myself. If there was a weird noise then I would of known to look around for it, but mine had no noises at all.
Contemplating changing the inner and outer tie rods, but is it really necessary, especially after what was found with loose camber bolt?
#59
Should be doing mine here in the next week or 2. Got one BJ done, need to do the other and going to do tie rods while I am at it...