i am an idiot and i think i messed up my inner tie rod or worse, help

[thrasherx89]

alright, soooo....i lowered my car and i totally forgot about what it does to the suspension

i got tein super drifts on the car along with adjustable, rear toe, traction and upper control arms, i got it so that the camber isnt so negative

when i dropped it down im sure i messed soemthing up got it to les schwab to do an allignment, he says he wont touch it because their is play in my front and that it was too low(slammed like crazy)

so i raised them to full height and he says thats high enough to allign but i need to fix my front

when i turn my wheel all the way to the right and play with it, he says their is too much play i think in the ball joint on the inner tie rod, also i can hear it pop when i drive it and tur the wheel

i think i need to replace the inner tie rods correct? thats what gets damaged when you super slam a car without correction, can anybody help me with info on this?

and could it be anything else? i think their is some up and down play which i hope isnt the rack

thanks everybody and yes im an idiot

[SleepyHB]

just jack it up and check it, if its bad you will be able to wiggle it real easy.

[thrasherx89]

yeah like the guy showed me at les schwab, like he made me turn the wheel all the way to the right and then turn it a little bit back and forth

he did it and i watched it, it look like it had a little bit of up and down play and also the poping i read is a sign of tie rods

i think it should just be the inner tie rods, is it possible that something else is damaged (i.e. what the inner tie rod is attached too?)

thanks for the reply

[StandardProspect]

So let me get this straight, your gonna raise your car as high as your coils go and get an alignment, and then after the alignment your gonna lower it back down? Sounds kind of pointless. Find a shop that will align your car at your desired ride height.

[thrasherx89]

oh no no, i wasnt goign to lower it back down after they alligned it

i initialy raised it back up to relieve some of the stress on the inner tie rod which is what i was told was the problem

i did that so i could get it back home, but no shop will align it with the tie rod being that way because they cant get an accurate reading

im trying to find out what was damaged on the car that i need to fix, tommorrow i buying inner tie rods and replacing them and keepthing the car raised up and then take it to a shop that does lowered alignment and have them alight it all together

i just want to fix the damaged and make my car driveable again

thanks for the reply

[240dx]

put a jack under a front control arm and lift it up till the tire is off the ground.

Grab the wheel top and bottom and try to move it in and out. If theres a fair amount of play it's probably a ball joint.

Grab the wheel side to side. If theres a fair amount of play it's probably an outter tie rod.

[thrasherx89]

thanks for this info

the local auto parts store cant get inner tie rods till tommorrow so im gonna check it out all tommorrow and see if its play

more likely than not it is the inner tie rod

does anybody know how to adjust it to compansate for the lowering of the car on the inner and outter tie rods so when i do go to lower it again this dosnt happen?

thanks for the reply

[wht240sx]

When you slam a car like that it puts more stress on the outer tie rod endsnot the inners. You should jack the car up from the lower control arms and feel for lossness yourself. You dont have to turn the wheel all the way to the right or left to feel for looseness in the tie rods. And if you have up and down play, its probley your wheel bearing. A loose wheel bearing can make your tie rods feel loose too.

[BrianHarte]

I don't know how to answer your questions, but, I have always had Tein tie rods on my drift cars. No fancy style tie rod ends or any of that crap. Just simple OEm style.No problems. EVER.

[thrasherx89]

hmmmm....cause i dont really know anything about the front suspension at all

im asking because thats what the guy was telling me at les schwab

the tire i was looking at, i JUST replaced the bearing the day i lowered the car and it just sat there and i just drove it about 5 miles, i dont think it would have messed the bearing that fast.

im hopefully gonna test it tommorrow, the boot was all torn up so i guess thats an indication of the stress that it was under

the outers seem fine although ill look at them too when i give it a good looking at tommorrow

thanks for the reply

[thrasherx89]

i might end up getting those eventually when i finally go to lower the car more than it is now, its up close to stock high right now

that brings me to another question

despite the obvious strenth upgrade from stock, are the teins shorter or longer or something to support the lowering of the car?

or how are they different from the stock ones?

[BrianHarte]

I think they are slightly stronger or something.Or maybe they are just the same as S14 rods.

I forget.

[thrasherx89]

yea i read that the teins are pretty much inter changeable with the s14's and that they are similar, at least when i looked to replace my inners awhile back with teins they requried a tein or s14 outter so yeah

does anybody know the mechanics of what goes on when somebody lowers a car, as far as the front goes

i adjusted my ruca so that i dont have as much cambera nd im gonna fiddle with taht and the toe and traction until i get it as close to no camber as possible

but the front i have no real idea of how it affected my tension rods in the first place

im sure it effects the bearings when adding stress to it due to the camber correct?

thanks

[chaosli]

its the ball joint. those inner tierod is a bar oh metal it hard to break even if you lower it.

if you can move the wheel up and down its the ball jointif you cam mover it left to right its the tierod end

[thrasherx89]

thanks for the info, ill get to looking at it tommorrow and diagnose it and let everybody know whats up with it

gonna make a run to the graceland of pnp

and i did some reasearch and found out how it manages to get messed up thats what i get for dummy low

i got it on close to the highest it goes, think it will be safe to drive once i replace the inner tie rod, as in, it wont mess it up AGAIN

[thrasherx89]

ok so i looked at my car this morning and i did the tests that you all told me about and pulled on the inner tie rod as well and determined that the outer tie rods on both sides are fine and even the boot is fine on them.

the drivers side inner tie rod had no play while the passenger side did have alot of pay, so went to pick and pull and got me a passenger side inner tie rod that had no play

as well as some z32 inner tie rods for later

and put it on today with no play, i tried to match it up exactly to the one before it and i say it is pretty close

i dont think i have any bad toe in or out action going on, no way to tell unless drive i guess

does anybody know how to calibrate toe?

and everything else seemed to be fine

although the ball joint boot at on the lower control arms are busted open and dosnt seem to have any play though do you think that lowering the car so much could have damaged the lower control arm ball joint???

thanks everybody for all the help!! i found a place with a level ramp to do my alignment on my lowered car, gotta hurry up and get aftermarket outers before i even bother