I wander what's wrong

Cosmetically, the Impala is in terrible shape.  Mechanically though, it's pretty good.  It is however a 164,000 mile car.  At that mileage, stuff is bound to be worn out, particularly if parts of it haven't been properly serviced.  Case in point, my outer tie rod ends.  While they are greasable, one side had the grease fitting broken off.  It was pretty loose.  It's easy to check, have someone move the steering wheel back and fourth while you look at all the steering system joints.  If you see any play, the joint is bad.  While one side was ok, the other was on the verge of failure, so I decided to replace them both. 

First things first, any time you monkey with the steering system, you need to recheck the alignment.  The method shown here will often get you close enough.  The first thing I did was use my calipers to measure the length of the original tie rod end.  I measured from the edge of the adjusting sleeve to the center of the grease fitting(or, at least where the grease fitting used to be).

Then I used a tie rod puller(which is actually a pusher) to remove the tie rod stud from the knuckle.  I picked up my puller at Harbor Freight.  It was cheap, and it works great.  Alternatively, you can use a pickle fork, but I find the puller is easier.  If you don't want to buy one, they can be rented from many auto parts stores through their tool loaner programs.  Notice that I still have the nut loosely on the stud.  Sometimes it takes a whole lot of force to break them loose, and this keeps the tie rod from flopping to the ground when the stud pops.

You can see here just how bad this joint was.  There was no more grease in it, and it had tons of play in it.  It could have broken at any moment(also, no the pic isn't backwards, this is the other side, the worse of the two).

A vice grips on the shaft and penetrating oil on the sleeve threads will help get the old end out.  With the old rod end unscrewed, the new one gets screwed in.  Using the calipers, the new end is adjusted to be the exact same length as the original.  The threads of the adjusting sleeve also get a very heavy coating of antisieze so they aren't too stuck when it comes time for an actual alignment.

Repeat for the other side, and that's all there is to it.  No more wandering, and no fear of careening to your death with every pot hole.  Once both sides are done, you can verify your toe settings with a tape measure.  While not laser accurate, the tape measure method works fine for most people.  Next summer, I'm going to replace the rest of the suspension/steering joints, and I'll get an actual alignment then.

You might also notice that the sway bar bushings are gone, and the bumpstops chewed up.  We'll deal with those in a future post.