I know its a newbie question but I seriously can't seem to figure it out. my PS wheel is so far out of alignment it's visually noticeable. I mean, its bad. but I don't want to spend the money yet to get it professionally aligned so I just want to get it back to close.
how the heck do I do it? I know its got something to do with tie-rods...
Loosen the nut on the tie rod (the one on the shaft, not the one holding it to the spindle), then turn the shaft to adjust length. Lengthening it will toe the wheels out, shortening it will toe them in. Once you've got it adjusted tighten the nut back up.
Or take it to an alignment shop. Your tires will thank you.
yes, but how???
I tried loosening and turning stuff before but for some reason nothing would move.
I just can't seem to grasp the concept. I don't think I loosened/turned the right things.
Uh...you do know what the inner and outer tie rod ends are right?
so I turn the nut the green arrow's pointing to and then turn the tie rod where the red arrows pointing. CORRECT?'
for some reason I don't understand steering components...haven't really learned them yet:dunce:
NO , you turn the skinny part that goes into the part that the red arrow is pointing at
The narrow piece towards the center of the car , the piece that comes out of the boot on the rack
OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH:brick:
that makes a lot more sense
how the heck do you turn it? just vice-grips or channel locks or something?
and is it bad if the other part does turn? its connected to the ball joint right? so that means its supposed to have some leeway...?
Vice grips work perfectly , and the other end is attached to the spindle not the ball joint and it wont "turn" per se
it will move some as its supposed to... but you wont get a 360* turn
oh okay good cause I get about 50-60* in either direction from center
course that just means I don't even know what the f**kin ball joint is arggggghhhhh
The ball joint is the thing right at the end of the control arm that the spindle pivots on
In the picture its the "other " piece that has the castle nut on it I dont know how to put arrows and stuff in pictures or I would just point at it
Seeing that you have an mn-12 car, you'd better figure out what the balljoints are - they WILL fail on you, probably more than once depending on how long you own the car. And it's a scary feeling driving down the road with bad balljoints, especially the lowers.
well, that's reassuring...
Yep. It sucks. Before I sold mine, they were about completely shot. ( I did stress this to the new owner, a lot - he seemed to think they only needed greasing). It is easier to replace the control arms than to have the balljoints pressed out, then have new ones pressed back in. Oh, and a word of advice on parts, Moog and Motorcraft are the only way to go with suspension parts for the MN-12s, The autostore brands are junk, you would be replacing them again after a year. I say good luck to you sir when the time comes. Once you do it one time though, the second isn't so bad.
I gotta go over my whole front end on that car at some point anyway. I think sometime (probably late) next year after money picks back up and the cougar is up and running I'm gonna start attacking the suspension on the bird.
I got this weird pop in my front end when I accelerate too hard and the front end lurches up and then pop again when it comes back down and sometimes during hard bumps or potholes too. I'm not sure whats doing it... I tried to figure it out before but I couldn't isolate it. I'm sure its not good whatever it is.
Not to mention I've got a horrible vibration in my front end at all speeds but I'm 95% sure thats due to bad tires. They're pretty worn out and they fail the foolproof jack-it-up-spin-it-and-watch-it-wobble test.
I also noticed just today actually that something is leaking in the rear too. looks like a control arm bushing or something... I couldn't really tell without jacking it up. Weird though cause its was kinda reddish like tranny fluid but it didn't smell like it and I couldn't actually recognize the smell either.
At some point I'm just going to rebuild everything and get it all out of the way at once.
...Right now my priority though is just getting the cougar functional again so I can get it on the road in case something dramatic does happen to the bird, then I'll at least have something to drive ya know.
check the trans dipstick tube, i had a vehicle do the same and found out it was leaking from that tube and went straight down the frame rail to the rear of the vehicle.
cool i'll try it
...Sarjxxx. Remove the boot from the steering rack, and you'll see the flats that you're supposed to use to turn the inner tie rod. You loosen the Jamnut for the outer tie rod(Green arrow) then turn the inner rod by the rack. You shouldn't need to hold the large nut that attaches to the steering rack while doing this, but it can't hurt.
Also be aware that if the boot isn't secured back in place well enough, you may get a slow drip of ATF if your rack isn't in the best shape.
i thought his question was fox related because i was going to suggest checking the strut top thingy and see if it moved. my ps wheel was visibly toe out and the cause was the strut top lossened up and shifted(visble by the sed paint and sheered off pin). 2 minutes and a big ratchet fixed that up.
it wore my tire out pretty fast like that.
it was a fox question. we just got a little off topic lol
thx, I don't think my strut's out of line but I'll check tomorrow.
The ball-joints on the MN-12 aren't like the Fox cars. They can't be removed and pressed back in. They're physically part of the upper (and lower) control arm. Super Coupe Performance is where I got mine from. Bill sells good shiznit, y0
Not to burst your bubble, but the popping is probably the upper ball joint.
You should figure it'll be about 150$ for the upper control arms & another 150$ for the lower control arms. So, I would do the UCA's then go to the LCA's. They're a piece of cake to change. My wife's older boy & I tackled them in the better part of 8 hours.
You'll need an 18mm wrench ...although I recall using a 19mm somewhere on the upper. I'll see if I can find the pics from when I did mine.
They most certainly can be pressed out, and you can buy just the balljoints separate from the UCA. I don't recommend doing it this way, but it can be done. Do a search on Tccoa - plenty of people have done it that way.
x2,, thats what the flat areas are for.