Can you leave only tie rod connected when swapping struts and arms?

I am swapping my struts for coil overs and at same time installing new lower and trailing control arms. My process has been from watching a lot of related videos. Unfortunately, when i went to remove the tie rod, I stripped the inner bolt head. The one with the torx for counter holding. I was able to get it off by hammering a larger bit into it, but i'm not sure i'll be able to save it--- and I wasn't planning on buying new tie rods and dealing with that. For the other side can I keep the tie rod connected? It looks like it folds down pretty far in order to get the strut out. I had to be pretty careful with the knuckle. Assume remove LcA first and then use jack to hold everything up? The order I followed on the first side was: Remove caliper Remove related brackets and plugs Disconnect drop link from knuckle (i removed sway entirely as also swapping bushings Remove trailing lower control arm Remove bolt for tie rod (At this point I badly spun the torx in the bolt and had to bash in a larger torx to finish the job). Tie rod bolt came out with a simple hammer tap, no ball joint breaker needed Remove LCA frame bolt and jack up bottom of lower control arm for support Mark and remove top strut bolts. Lower jack and pull out entire strut, knuckle and discs. Then I removed the lower control arm bolt and popped free Then banged out the strut. Now i have the knuckle and strut sitting aside. Is there a better way to do this? So i don't have to deal with the rusted tie rod bolt on other side, and don't need to be pulling the entire assembly out? The only problem i can envision is getting the strut out of the knuckle if the LCA has been removed. It was really hard to separate them. Mostly just don't want to spend 40 minutes turning that nut 1/8th turn at a time because the clearance to get a wrench in there is so tight, and the torx hole is rusted so bad it was just a disaster waiting to happen.

I have actually not had to use the counter hold torx at all while removing any of the balljoints in the suspension. I just used a screw jack under the ball joint (LCA, tie rod or rear toe arm) to load it up and had no spinning. I used the same method to torque the ball joints. While you probably could remove the strut with the tie rod still connected to the knuckle, it will probably just be easier to do it the proper way. I have learned the hard way that taking shortcuts in suspension jobs always ends up taking more time. And as far as spending 40 minutes turning a nut 1/8th turn at a time, wait till you get to the ball joints on the rear lower control arms; 1/8th turn at a time is only possible if you flip the wrench every turn. This video from FCP Euro is a great reference if you haven't already seen it.

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Thanks, I did try jacking up under the tie rod joint, it didn't help. The top of the bolt was rusted pretty bad, hence the tiny amount of progress. On the rear I only swapped the shock for the coil over, so that went pretty quick. Yes FCP has been a primary resource, amongst other videos. If getting that bolt out was easier i wouldn't worry about it so much, but i don't want to run into same issue on other side, and i didn't want to have to replace the tie rod right now as read it's a bit of a pain.

This is why God invented impact wrenches. Anything from a Ingersol Rand to a Milwaukee 1/2 inch M18 set up would zap that off.

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Yes i have one. But the bolt spins in the ball joint, even with pressure from under neath. So you need the counter hold. and you can't pass a torx through a power tool For those not familiar with the tie rod bolt, you can see how its rusted badly, and the center torx just couldn't take it after all the force it was taking. I was close before it finally stripped.

You don't need to change the whole tie rod to replace that part. Just change the tie rod outer end. It's unusual to need to hold the tapered part when loosening it even if it's very rusted. The tapers are self-locking and should hold no matter what. The torx inside is typically used only for tightening, as the taper needs to be very tight in the wheel carrier to self lock. Were it I, I would have slit the nut with a dremel cutting disk to get the nut off instead of trying to hold the taper bolt with the torx.

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How much pressure from underneath are we talking? When I was doing the rear LCA ball joint, I managed to get a wrench stuck on the nut, requiring me to separate the ball joint before the nut was fully off. Once the ball joint bolt was spinning free, I had to use the jack to raise the suspension almost to fully loaded before the bolt would stop spinning. And this was with a fair amount of pb blaster on the bolt. In my experience, just add pressure from underneath and the bolt should lock up.

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Ok, I guess I didn't really understand the tie-rod part--- I thought it was a pain point, but is just unscrewing that outer part not a hard? I assume i need to mark the thread so I don't mess up alignment horrifically. And good thinking on cutting the bolt off -- again things I wouldn't have considered. I would though be worried I'd cut into the bolt threads itself. What is this part? "The tapers are self-locking and should hold no matter what." -- The bolt started spinning like two small turns into trying to remove the nut.

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Ok I may not have added that much pressure. On the other side I will try jacking it up more to see if it helps the tie rod nut.

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Do not jack up by tie rod. To get tie rod nut off, you need to invest/use an good 1/2" impact wrench and it will come right off. If you jack up the tie rod you might bend something and its not needed at all. If the ball stud of tie rod is spinning when trying to take of the nut with impact wrench then the tie rod tapered ball stud must have been lose in the upright to start with and or never tightened down correctly to start with, very strange. Maybe tighten down the nut tight with impact to get the taper holding the ball stud then reverse the impact and take if off. A good impact wrench doesn't need the other end to be held (9 out of 10 times), thats the beauty of impact wrenches.

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The bolt sticking out of the tie rod end is tapered and the socket in the wheel carrier is also tapered. When it's assembled the tapers jam tightly together. This prevents any play from tolerances in the joint and holds the joint together even if the nut is loose. Same with the ball joint, it's tapered for the same reason. Leave the jam nut exactly as it is on the tie rod when you remove the outer tie rod end. Then screw the new one up so it's touching the jam nut. This should be very close.

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In theory that would makes sense with the use of the impact wrench. But the entire bolt+nut spun when just using a hand wrench. The impact wrench just made it spin faster. The top of the bolt was a rested mess and it just got jammed. I was able to re-install the tie rod bolt and will address upgrading those when I look at further front end mods. To get it to tighten, I had to apply pressure to the buttom of the tie-rod under the bolt and use the counter with a torx jammed in there. I was able to get it tight enough that the inners of the tie-rod was able to hold and I could tighten to 56 ft lbs. Wish me luck on the other side! (I did rethink trying to keep from removing it-- there is too much weight withe knuckle to risk it all on the tire rod).

Well, exact same thing happened on other side. I jacked up knuckle to put tension on the bolt, used an impact. And the nut got as far as level with the end of the bolt and fused. Now whole thing just spins. I tried jacking up the joint to bind the two part but it still just spins. And now i can't use the center torx at all, it's stuck too much. Man....

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What impact do you have..?

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It's a Ryobi. Pretty strong to get off lugs and such. but not sure what that would matter, once the joint separates the bolt spins freely.

Cut the nuts off. Sacrifice the post if you have to, but not the suspension piece. Replace the tie rod ends -- you don't have to replace the entire tie rod. They're not that expensive, and you're going to have to do an alignment no matter what.

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I have to lower the car before a new tie rod would arrive. Assume there is no issue with the car on the ground with the tire rods disconnected? I really hope I don't have an issue getting the outer off-- I'm not setup to do the inners.

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Is it a 1/2" drive impact...? Reason I ask, a good working 1/2" impact actually 'hammers' off fasteners with a series of very hard short duration 'impact blows' . It doesn't just spin them off. Many/most times even if a fastner is slightly spinning,,, if the impact wrench is left on it 4-5 seconds more of 'hammering' on it after it starts to loosen, will eventually take it off... most times. Something is wrong here. The suspension joint taper fit should never spin when just loosening the nut with any type of wrench/socket. The tapered press interference fit of the suspension joint assembled correctly is so tight a joint separator type tool is usually always needed. Or on steel parts a solid few whacks with a small sledge hammer at the least... Can't even remember how many hundreds of suspension joints I've zipped right off/removed with a 1/2" impact wrench. What I'm saying is I don't know whats going on there you shouldn't be having these types of problems. From reading/understanding your above posts, If it were me, I'd do this.... Take your fully charged 1/2" Ryobi impact and with nothing but a good 6 point socket on the drive with no extensions, u-joints,, etc, and directly square on the nut and tighten it down as hard as it can go. (Doubt you'd ever break it off but thats another way to get it off if it did.) If you have to put pressure on it from underneath or what ever you have to do to get it back together tight do it. After the joint is tightened down hard letting the impact hammer on it after it seats home for another 4-5 seconds, Then get out your wd-40 and liberally spray down the top of nut threads, get a small wire brush and try to clean off as much corrosion as you can, spray again. then reverse the impact and see if it will take off the nut letting it continue to hammer on it till its off. jmho

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I don't really know what to say. The impact is 1/2". It has three speeds plus an Auto mode where it ramps up the power as needed. It did remove the but all the way to the top of bolt, but then bottom of the tie rod just fell out of the knuckle and at that point there is nothing holding the bolt so the whole thing just spins. I did have the suspension compressed. I did NOT jack up from the tie-rod joint (as was said by someone in a prior comment). I did actually then jack up the tie rod side a bit hoping the pressure would hold the bolt. But the nut is so fused to the top of the bolt, it just spins. I do wonder in retrospect if I had spent some time cleaning the rusted end of the bolt if it would have helped. But how I have the torx and the bolt, and Ic can't move it. And I know the torz will eventually strip. Per your comment here " The tapered press interference fit of the suspension joint assembled correctly is so tight a joint separator type tool is usually always needed." -- yes in theory that should be the case. But you can watch almost every video online (even FCPs) and that joint almost never requires a ball joint separator, it either just falls out or needs a simple little tap with a hammer. (He even makes a joke about how the joint will just fall off with no pressuer, link to point here: ttps://youtu.be/BJiQzTthDCU?t=637 ) Per this "Then get out your wd-40 and liberally spray down the top of nut threads, get a small wire brush and try to clean off as much corrosion as you can, spray again. then reverse the impact and see if it will take off the nut letting it continue to hammer on it till its off." I doubt I am going to be able to tighten it again. It's majorly fused on the end of the nut. I did try to tightening it back. I did use PB Blaster for a few days prior. I did not however clean the top threads with a brush. I do appreciate the support though--- I think I'm going to give it some short blasts with the torch to see if it will loosen a bit, other wise cut it off. Not that I have anything but a dremmel to do that... I'm going to end up with a full mechanics shop after I'm done with this bolt, my broken bolt that needs to be drilled, and my potentially messed up threads on a caliper hole. So much for saving money with DIY! lol... 😭

I have never in 40 years had a tapered joint like that come apart without applying much force. My experience with these, it needs a separator tightened up TIGHT and a couple whacks with a 2lb hammer. When it lets go it lets go with a BANG. Someone didn't put these on properly.

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Well i've had two I cut off the nut on this second one and it just took a light tap of hammer to get it to pop out. Found another video of a guy taking his off and again, just pops right off. Bow the LCA that does require a separator. Made a few slits close to thread and it gave it enough slack to unscrew, but top of thread don't look so good. I'm really nervous about trying to under the bolt that holds the out rod, A) it spins inside the boot when trying to turn, and B) feel like i'm tempting fate... i don't want to have to do inners too. pic of the bolt

And since we're on the topic... same exact thing happened with the lower control arm bolt. Impact loosened it, took bolt all the way to top, and then it fused tight. Again can not budge it. And have zero leverage as the whole rotor spinning is not helping And another dremmel project! Gah i've had about enough of bolts! Chicago lifetime car kicking me...

The inner tie rod can spin at the attachment to the rack. No problem there. Just make sure the boot doesn't get twisted up. Since you're trashing the LCA that isn't a problem. Just cut the nuts off. I'm in New England which might be worse than Chicago for rust. Most of the cars I see are old. I've not had anything like the issues on your car. I would wire brush the threads outside the nut when possible. Seems like you're making good progress.

Keep at it. Its just part of the process of working in salty areas. Pre-cooking the nut/bolt does help and also working the nut from reverse to foward as it gets tight will also break up the corrosion. u do not need the steering tie rods connected to put it on the ground.

Cut the LCA nut off and back in business. Thus concludes this episode of how to free a rusted nut.