Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum and working on cars in general and I very much appreciate any advice you all have for me. So my outer tie rod is horrendous, scary actually. Twisting it side to side when its still attached to the wheel I get about an inch of movement. I know i need to replace that and it seems fairly easy, but I want to check the inner tie rod as well. I am having trouble getting the boot off and i don't want to accidentally rip it because it seems to be in good shape still. Any advice on getting that off? in every video i've seen it comes right off easily. Thank you

 

Buy the outer tie rod and replace it, then with the car jacked off the ground in the front and no tire on jerk the steering wheel back and forth and listen for a clunking noise. You can also pull and push on the outer tie rod once you separate it from the knuckle any play will be noticeable for the inner tie rod. If there is play or clunking the inners are bad.

 

Looking at more videos now and I found one that has an adjuster bolt in front of the bellow boot that needs to come off. I'm not sure if thats the case with my car or not so ill take another look tomorrow. However it did look rusty as hell so just hoping for the best. Thank you for the help

 

Detach the outer end joint from the knuckle. Grab it and try to push the tie rod in and out against the inner. If it is tight you just need to replace the outer. If there is slack inside the boot you need to investigate the inner. Besides a bad inner joint, it is also possible for the rack itself to become loose. Looseness in the rack will be most apparent with the wheel pointed straight ahead, since that is how it is for about 100% of driving time.

To remove the boot, you need to take the spiral wire clip off of the outside end. And of course unscrew or cut the clamp on the inside end.

 

The bolt tightens the outer tie rod to the inner, you don't need to take it off to check the inner. Just manual pushing and pulling on the outer when connected to the inner will tell you if it's bad. If you do decide to remove the nut anyway to visually inspect the inside of the boot make sure you measure where it was on the inner tie rod because it will throw off your alignment. Also the metal bands that hold the bellow (boot) on are not reusable and need to get replaced with new metal bands or zip ties.

 

Much appreciated guys, hopefully it is just the outer rod.

 

I replaced my drivers side on the 2000 civic ex using a pipe wrench for the inner tie rod. I just shoved the boot back over the rack. It stretched enough to fit over it.
If you are going to replace the outer, you may as well replace the inner. Assemble the inner and outer so that the combination is the same/about the same length as the old one. Once you install the new parts, look online for DIY ALIGNMENT, use the string method and you will be fine.