Civic steering & tie rods

I bought my '92 Civic at 130,000 and it now has 163,000 mi. I have been
driving all this time with broken boots on the tie rods where they plug
into the steering gearbox. I don't think the steering feels quite
right. I now have the cash and want to get this fixed. Neither shop
that I usually go to is specifically a Honda expert. Does anyone here
have familiarity with these tie rod end connections? If someone snaps
in new bushings and tie-rod/ball-joint assemblies, will it be fixed, or
is there a chance the rack has to be replaced? (I hope not.) Is a
Honda expert recommended or just a decent mechanic? I'm asking for
info ahead of time so I can be more confident in dealing with whatever
shop does the job.

Dail

 

If you mean the inner tie rods, then the boot protects basically a
hydraulic shaft from the elements. If that boot has been torn and
letting the elements then your rack is probably toast.

If you mean the outer tie rods, then the boot protects a ball joint and
this is a relatively easy job to do. Once you you loosen the tie rod
castle nut to the knuckle, there is only one adjustment bolt to loosen,
and then the outer tie roads with rotate out.

 

it's basically the bushings and seals that wear in this situation, so
they're the prime candidate for replacement. that's not so easy
unfortunately, and a reconditioned rack is expensive.

check for play in the bushings. if they're ok, see how you go with
thoroughly cleaning the rack itself, [extending out all the way,
cleaning & re-greasing] and new boots. if there's play, that may not be
productive, so see what condition of rack you can dig up from a junk
yard. when re-greasing, use silicone grease only - ordinary grease
ruins the seals.

next time, even a plastic bag tied over the boot is better than nothing.
dirt is the enemy.

 

Bad, bad idea. Lots of dust gets in and grinds up the inner balljoints.

Eventually you'll get clunking from the front end whenever you
accelerate/decelerate.

That tells you nothing by itself. Weird steering could be a suspension
balljoint having worn loose, bad tires, bad alignment, all sorts of things.

The inner joints are not the "tie rod ends". Those are at the other end of
the linkage, against the brake rotors.

Any decent mechanic can do this. To determine if your inner balljoints are
worn, he needs to pop the REAL tie rod end balljoint, then carefully
push/pull on the linkage while it's oriented as it is when in normal use.
If the inner joint is worn, there will be obvious play, but it may take
holding the linkage at exactly the right angle before you feel it.

If the inner joint is still OK, you may get away with just new boots for a
long time.

Have somebody check your alignment too. Your weird steering might be just
that.

 

93 Civic DX HB AT ~265,000 miles (bad odometer-estimate from gas usage)

Researching old posts here:

I too have a car with torn boots and an inner tie rod going bad (no other play
as far as I can tell). I'm about to order some parts for the work but I'm
curious about the grease. I'm ordering parts from Majestic and did a search for
the grease (P/N 08733-B070E as per Helms) and the search comes up blank.

Will any silicone grease from an auto parts store do the job?

Thanks,