tie rod dust cover 75 280z

[Dave WM]

while messing around on the z yesterday I noticed the lack of a dust cover on the tie rod. Looks like it just crumbled up and was gone. I know the standard course of action is to replace tie rods, but the car steers well and handled fine, and I  did not want to mess that up, so... of to part store and I got some dust boots. There were the cheap looking dorman ones and then better looking urethane ones. I got both just to cover the bases.

jack up front off comes the wheel, impact driver makes short work of the nut, then nothing. I do not have one of those forks used to separate tie rods, banging on the sides of the ball joint part did nothing. Then it  hit me, chill it out. Using some dust off turned upside down I hit the tie rod end to freeze it (there by shrinking it some). It practically popped out on its own. I still plan to get a fork but its a nice stress free way of popping that loose. From there it went as expected, put on the boot, reinstalled pumped in some grease and good to go. I only got one done (learning curve will make the next go a lot faster). The rubber parts don't look too bad, and still had some give to them, but I did get some new TC bushings anyway, for when it gets cooler. I can only stand it about 1 hour now when its 95 feels like 105 in the garage.

[Patcon]

Forks will work to separate ball joints but they typically destroy the dust boots if you ever work on one where they are good...

[Dave WM]

I am new to car work, good to know. I did see some oil on the rubber boot that covers the strut. I suppose that means the hydraulic oil has sprung a leak and I will have to work on that a some point. That being said the car suspension seems fine, damping seems good, no bounce.