The tie rods in my car don't appear to have any slop as yet, but they are both quite 'loose', so now is a good time to replace them while the car is still in pieces.

There are flats on the rod's joint outer casing to allow its R&R, but there's no way to grip the rack itself to stop it trying to twist. The torque figure I've read is 80Nm, so I don't want to damage the rack internals by jumping in regardless armed with a large spanner.
I have never replaced tie rods on any car.

I see that quite a few of you have tackled this job, so any advice would be most welcome. Do the threads have locking compound on them?

Separately, has anyone encountered any grief with the bolts securing the rack to the crossmember? I have yet to encounter a seized bolt on this car and I wouldn't want these to be my first. They are small, exposed and into aluminium

Thanks,
Mike

 

I assume you are talking about the inner tie rod end? Dont take out the rack. Just loosen the rubber boot, use the right spanner (pretty big but I dont remember exact) hold it secure with one hand and hit it with your other hand to give it a shock. That will normally loosen it without trouble.

 

Thanks, NorXKR
Yes, I mean the rods that attach to each end of the rack. The workshop manual is silent here as Jaguar wants to sell you a complete steering rack when they go south (they are not listed as separate parts). It's a ZF assembly so perhaps there's some info out there that I've not yet found.

The rack removal is not for this job - I have new engine mountings and V-mounts to fit at some point and I may include them in this PM session depending on how the control arm rebuilds go (and it's not too good atm).
The workshop manual implies that the crossmember can be dropped without detaching the rack, but that depends on being able to disconnect the steering column. The manual doesn't include it as a step in lowering the rear of the crossmember, but I've read otherwise.

 

The tie rod ends aren't all that bad. I did mine recently as the car was "wandering" a little bit and I could detect some side-to-side movement in the wheels. I got Moog
tie rods ends off the Rock place. It's a little difficult to see, but there are nuts on the inboard ends of the tie rod ends. These need to be loosened before the tie rod ends
themselves are threaded off the tie rod. You need to count the turns to get the tie rod end off, and put the new ones back on with the same amount of turns to get the
toe correct - with mine I did them one at a time and it took one more turn with the new ends to get it right. I could tell by the alignment of the steering wheel. I used a
small ball joint separator to pop the ends out of the hub.

 

I found the attached document, and it covers the 7852 variant that is on my car. I doubt that its being for non-servotronic versions will have any impact on the tie rods.

The document shows that the rack should be supported in a soft-jawed vice (clamp?) when removing or fitting the tie rods where there are no spanner flats on it.

JimmyL - thanks for chipping in, although it's this part (131) that I'm referring to:

 

Counting the number or turns when removing the tie rod ends is not a bad idea but it's best to mark the centerline of the stud end of the tie rod, then mark a measured location, such as 1 foot, six inches, or whatever, away on the steering linkage with a Sharpie. Mark the centerline of the new tie rod end stud and install it to match the measured dimension. This procedure compensates for any small difference in the length of the threaded portion from one manufacturer to another. Loosen the jam nut for removal and tighten it for installation.

 

Counting turns on the tie rod ends is okay to get the wheels approximately close to before, but it will not get the toe-in correct. I used a plumb-bob method to set the toe-in correctly on my Mercedes and put that video here:
Of course you can go to a front end alignment shop that has more sophisticated equipment to do the same thing.