5 Tips When Replacing Steering Components on Your Project Car

The three critical systems of a car, in order of importance, are: Steering, brakes, and the drivetrain. If you question this ordering think no further than how many times you have heard someone tell stories of driving a vehicle with no brakes. I've never heard a story of someone intentionally driving a vehicle that had no steering.

Now that we agree that steering is critical, we therefore also all agree that maintaining your steering components is important. For those of the DIY proclivity it is a relatively simple system to understand and work on. To get you started, here are five tips for tackling the system of tie-rods, drag links, and idler arms, steering boxes, and pitman arms.

Check your threads

There aren't many areas on a car where left- and right-hand threads are mixed together in an assembly. Steering is one of them. With modern impact tools capable of twisting the threads right off a nut or bolt, going the proper direction is important because you might not get a second chance. Trace the threads with your finger or a pick to confirm if "righty tighty, lefty loosey" still applies.

Careful with your castles

While it sounds like advice pulled from a Dungeons and Dragons rulebook, it's also true for cars. Castle nuts get their name from the crenellations cut into the top which allow the use of cotter keys to keep the nuts from turning. They work well too, but unfortunately, they are often relatively delicate. Failing to get a socket fully seated can easily strip a castle nut, and a misplaced hammer blow can deform it enough that it will be difficult to remove. If you need to use a hammer for persuasion on one of these, remove it completely, flip it over, and thread it back on. This gives you a flat surface to hit with a hammer that will also not damage the threads.

Get the special puller

There are a couple of tight-fitting joints on the steering components. This means getting things apart can be frustrating-but it doesn't have to be. Buying a proper ball joint press or pitman arm puller can be a steep investment considering this work is not done weekly or even monthly for most at-home DIY'ers.

Luckily most chain auto parts stores are happy to rent the special tools to people like you and me. This often requires putting down the full price and getting a refund upon returning the tools, but compared to the frustration of using the wrong tools the hold on some of my cash is very much worth it. Be sure to find proper instructions on use online as the rental tools rarely include them.

Match the new tie rods to the old ones

Nearly everything in your steering system has some form of adjustment, and the most critical and obvious are the tie rods. While it is possible to just assemble them and ignore the horrible toe in or out just long enough to get to the alignment shop, your alignment guy is going to like you a lot more if you take the minute to thread the new tie rods together to roughly the same length as the one being removed. This puts the adjustment in the ballpark and also makes the drive to the alignment shop much more pleasant.

Assemble with anti-seize

The hardworking components of your steering system are sitting on the underside of your car under constant assault from every size and type of road debris. Water, road salt, dirt, rocks, and radical temperature changes can supercharge the hold of corrosion on threaded parts. A dab of anti-seize goes a long way in keeping this at bay. It will also help the parts last longer as there is the option of doing a second alignment later. Ask anyone who has argued with stubborn, crusty tie rods and you'll learn that anti-seize can be the small difference between a routine job and testing your patience while mangling tie rod sleeves.

Don't forget the cotter pins

Torquing hardware to spec determines both clamping pressure and helps keep things from loosening up. Because many of the parts in a steering system see a rotational movement that could potentially loosen the threaded fasteners, many steering components have the additional positive retention of a cotter key going through the bolt and castle nuts to keep them from turning. Aligning the castle nut to the hole through the bolt can be annoying, but it's an important step to keep your steering from unintentionally coming apart. No one wants that.

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