65 tie rod ends

[Anti-Ricer]

Are they any specialty tools or tricks for removing the tie rod ends on my 65 chevy truck? I'm tried using a pipe wrench with no luck. They won't turn any at all. I do still have the sleeve on it but it's loose and you can turn it around with your hand.

[Blue Heeler]

Get a good sledge hammer and bang the spindle with solid hits.

[Sharps40]

Assumeing you mean remove the tie rod end from the spindle and cross link eye.....pic follows.

[Sharps40]

If yer talking the spindle, here's a pic of pickle fork in use to remove the ends from the loops.....

Pickle fork to pop the inner and outer tie rod ends...they're worn O U T. Pickle forks are $10 at orelly's and use a good medium SmasherWacker on it.....Course, you know to take the cotter keys and nuts off the tie rod ends first......

[Anti-Ricer]

Im changing the tie rod ends so I guess the sleeves.

[Sharps40]

To change the tie rod ends you first have to remove the ends from the eyes....then you remove them from the sleeve.

Look at my john lee jr thread...I just finished changing out the entire front suspension this morning and the tread details the total replacement of every joint on the front end,,,,including counting the turns in/out on the tie rod sleeves so you can preserve enough alignment to safely drive to the alignment shop.

[Anti-Ricer]

I have them removed from the eyes its just removing them from the sleeves that im having trouble with.

[Sharps40]

Loosen the clamp on the sleeve...rotate the tie rod out, count the number of turns out....install the new tie rod in the same number of turns....tighten the clamp.

If its sticky, clamp the center of the sleeve in vice grips, use another pair of vice grips on the tie rod end to rotate it out.....if its really stuck and yer sure the clamp is loose, then apply some gentle heat to the sleeve to liquefy the dry grease or to break loose the rust inside.....

If all else fails, just get new sleeves since the old ones might get torn up/twisted if you apply too much force,.....they are just thinwall pipe and very old.

[Anti-Ricer]

Thanks for the help guys. I ended up going to home depot and picking up a propane torch kit to heat them up.after that the driver side came right off however the passenger side came all the way to the end of the sleeve then just started spinning. The sleeve is stripped all in it so I'll have to replace it which is 17.99 at O'Reillys.

[Sharps40]

Well, with one that failed....might as well replace both. both sides are nearing 50 years old and suffered similar conditions underneath. Might be the prudent move to replace both sleeves and have the peace of mind that they won't fail in the near future.