Yup. I ran into this quite often. At the dealership, a lot of customers brought their cars in once a year for a maintenance alignment. While adjusting toe, I thought I'd be smart and lube the threads with Chrysler's "Rust Penetrant" so it would insure they'd be easy to adjust next time. What I learned later was that stuff did a real good job of separating two metal parts that were rusted together, but then it opened the way for moisture to follow it in later. I needed a torch on every one of those tie rods to get them loose a year later. The better product was their "Spray White Lube". That's a lithium-based grease that goes on very runny. The juice soaks into tight places and takes the grease with it. The juice dries later and leaves the grease behind. That works real well on door hinge pins too.
Your best bet is to use an acetylene torch to heat the outer tie rod, then use a Vise-Grip pliers to turn the inner one to unscrew it. As an alternative, use a cut-off tool to cut a slot along the outer tie rod. The drawback is you'll have to cut into part of the threads of the inner tie rod. Cut into them just enough in one small area that you can introduce some penetrating oil. As I mentioned, Chrysler's Rust Penetrant is an excellent product, but you have to wash it off once the parts are separated. It sizzles when it goes on, and from previous experience, it does in 20 minutes what WD-40 didn't do in a weekend. I've heard real good things about "PB Blaster" too, but I've never used it myself. When assembling the new part(s), you can find the Spray White Lube under different names from many other sources including auto parts stores and hardware stores.
This is not a good place to use anti-seize compound. That stuff does a good job of letting parts separate years later, but it eliminates the friction that threads require to remain tight. Using that product will often cause the tie rod ends and jamb nut to work loose, then the constant hammering action will tear the threads off and the parts will separate, leading to loss of control and a crash.
Nov 29, 2020 at 5:01 PM
