Bought this manual rack of a guy a few months ago. Greased it all up and works pefectly but the OLD right tie rod wont come out. did notice it has a slight bend so the old car may have been in an accident. Put a 4 ft breaker bar on it and all its doing is pulling the threads out. Am I completly screwed or is there any way to save this now?

 

Anyone??

 

maybe heat it up?

 

Main thing I'm worried about is this because I dont think thats a part of the tie rod which means the tie rod has started to pull something out of the steering shaft that shouldnt be removable.

 

That looks to be in pretty sad shape. The stock inner tie rod nut should abut the rack. The stock inner tie rod threaded part that screws into the race has a flat spot. There are two small pins that are inserted into the end of the rack that seat against the flat spot on the threaded part of the tile rod to prevent it from loosening. I don't see any of that on your photo. Don't know what to tell you. All I can suggest is try using a torch. Looks to me like you don't have too many options left. Good luck.

 

Ok that was exactly the information I needed. I just went down to the rack, pulled it out and found this. I assume most of the pin has snapped since we put so much torque on it and now whatevers left has jammed itself between the threads and the steering shaft. Say I drill that out and unscrew it all the way is it possible to replace that piece or do I need to get the tie rod out to reuse it.

 

IIRC, the pin is only about 1/4" long. It goes from outside of rack to inside of threaded hole and against flat on tie rod. From my experience, they usually pop out enough when unscrewing the tie rod so as to not interfere with the removal process. Some aftermarket tie rods don't have this flat spot. The pins were available from Mazda, at least when I bought mine some 10+ years ago. If not, than you can probably find something similar from McMaster-Carr. The inner tie rods on my S5 are aftermarket (AC Delco) and don't have the flat spots. IIRC, I don't believe that I used the pins when I installed these tie rods. Probably best to refer to the Mazda FSM manual for this.

Maybe S5 rack is different from S4 rack, but on my S5 the nut on the inner tie rod would tighten against the end of the rack. There was no gap as your photo is showing. Refer to photo in this post: https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-gen-arch...t-pics-608167/

 

ok so I can get that pin replaced but what about that insert? or is what I'm looking at the actual tie rod and the pin is holding the inner tie rod in place?

 

GOOD NEWS! I got it pulled out! drilled out the top end of the bent pin and it gave what was jammed in the shaft enough play for the rod to come out. When I looked at the exploded view for the manual rack it showed both tie rods were the same but I guess this one has larger threads? Either way it looks like I should be able to use this after all because apart from that little issue I did get it lubed up and it works nicely! THANK YOU!

 

My S5 L&R tie rods are the same p/n. You need to check the tie rod p/n's for your particular R&P unit. Some may have slight variations. Glad to hear you got it out.