I have had my 86 NA for about 6 months and it has been making a clunking noise from the steering when making low speed turns. I know I need to replace the ball joints and the inner and outer tie rod ends, which are sitting in my room right now. My questions are these:

What bushings need to be replace?

Can I install these parts out of the box or do the boots on the ball joints need to be removed and greased?

Thanks

Bishop

 

If you bought brand new ball joints and tie rods, you should install them right out of the box.

 

Thanks for the reply. The car has about 165k miles on it and I dont think much has been replaced on it. Should I replace some bushings while I am at it? I am also going to install new shocks and springs while I am doing the tie rods and ball joints. Any thoughts on what problems I may run into?

Bishop

 

Use Search on "energy suspension" and you'll find lots of links on swapping out the bushings. You're right, you bushings and shocks are probably shot if they havent been replaced.

 

You should get new strut tops as well, I was surprised at the difference they made.

 

How hard is to to swap out bushings, and are there any special tools needed?

 

It kinda just depends on the bushing. Which ones do you want to replace? Or are you going for the full bushing replacement option?

 

Well the car has 170,000 miles on the chasis so i figured most of the rubber bushings are worn out. Honestly I have no way to back up that assumption other than that the steering is sloppy and my steering wheel jerks when I hit a bump. I am completely replacing inner and outer tie rod ends as well as the ball joints. Will replacing the remaining bushings help, and how do I really tell if I should buy the complete kit?

 

At 170,000 miles, all new bushing will make a world of difference. Your sloppy steering is probably the strut tops.

The big question now is can you replace the bushings yourself or are you having a shop do them? Some of the bushings are easy to get out and some of them are a royal pain in the rear. On my bushings a lot of them were easy to drill out. The harder ones my friend took care of for me. And on most of them there was still a bunch of cleanup to do after drilling them out.

If you do do it yourself, its also a great time to Rust coat your entire subframe and or underbody.