Could have been serious safety issue, but I guess I got lucky.

Decided to drive the '75 914 Saturday morning. Fired it up, backed it out of the garage, turned the steering wheel to pull down the driveway. A popping noise came from the front of the car as I'm still backing in reverse and the steering turns to crap.

I get out of the car and one front tire is turning right while the other is turning left. I put the car up on jack stands and remove the steering rack cover. The tie rod came out of the steering rack and was just dangeling from the wheel side.

This car has the turbo tie rods that were on the car when I purchased it from AA about 2 years ago. I have probably driven the car about 1500 miles since I have owned it with no signs of trouble with the tie rods or front suspension.

Any ideas of how the tie rod could just pop out of the steering rack. The threads on the rod and inside the rack appear to be ok from what I can tell.

Should I just remove the pin and nut from the wheel side and screw the tie rod back into the rack?

Anything else I should look for? I assume I will also need to have the alignment checked?

I feel lucky as this could have happend going into a corner at speed and the results would have been ugly.

Here are some photo's of the driver's side rack and turbo tie rod that popped out.

use the MACRO function on your digital camera. looks like a 'flower' icon. that sets it up for closeups...


did the car have an alignment recently? maybe the aligner unscrewed it from the rack?

Oh My!

EDIT:
How did that quote get there.....





That is scary.

When I did my Turbo Tie rods, mine came with a large OD thick washer. The washer effectively acts as a rack stop.

I have a couple questions from your pics:

Didn't yours have boots?

Do you still have the washer?

My suggestion would be to reinstall it into the rack and make sure it actually tightens up. If the threads are no good, it won't tighten up.

You will need the thin spanner wrench to tighten the turbo tie-rod.

Good luck with that.

I would realign the car after tightening things back up.

In the future, you may want to check these for backing off.

just my $0.02

What was the year/date that you purchased these, and from what source?
Reason is that the 3rd world knock-off tie rod kits , sold by most of the catalog folks are not to the DIN/ TUV spec of the real Porsche part.
Early demise of the rubber boot, no grease retention, and basically falling apart are the symptoms.
Just a thought.
Marty

Sorry for the low technology. These pics should be a little better and show the boot.

They do have boots, but I slid them back to take some of the photos.

I didn't see a washer, but it could be long gone somewhere in the driveway.

I haven't had an alignment performed and can't think of any recent work performed that the front suspension would have been touched, at least to my knowledge.

Thanks for the help.

The turbo tie rods were on the car when I purchased it a couple of years ago so I don't know anything about them.

Not sure who the manufacturer is or where they came from. It's really hard to tell, but they don't show any signs of wear from being on the car for a long period of time.

From your pics..... All the threads look good.

I B thinking it simply unscrewed. Where is the locking not and washer pics?

AND PLEASE CHECK THE OTHER SIDE BEFORE YOU GO ANY FARTHER....!!!!!!

Clayton

I recently installed turbo tie rods I got from AA. It didn't come with lockwashers. Sounds like I need them.

Put some ass on it when you tighten the thing. Obviously the DAPO did not have any ass.
I use a pipe wrench to get a good torque on them. Some say use one of them fancy wrenches . I just use brute force.

I haven't had the chance the pull the boot off the passenger side yet and inspect it, but I plan to do that tonight.

It sounds like I need to pick up a couple of lock washers to be on the safe side.

Does anyone know what size washers I need off hand? I didn't think to measure it before I left the house this morning and I may have some good sized metric washers here at work.

Thanks
Rich

I cannot understand how you would not notice the rod becoming unscrewed. Your alignment should have been getting progressively worse. Unless for some even more strange reason the rod was only engaged a few threads to get the alignment! How loose are the threads when you assemble them?

I have installed many pairs of those tie rods and I dont recall ever seeing a lock washer, the only thing about it I remember is that there is a big thick washer on the inside. It should not have come loose on you however, unless someone did an alignment and did not tighten up the lock bolt on the outside where you make the adjustments.

i've never seen a lock washer either. just the spacing disc. i can't figure out how the rack end could walk out. i agree with removing the rack end of the boot on the other side and taking a look. any ideas what the red stuff is? rack lube?

k

no lock washers or locking nuts on a TTR. they have large "rack stop" washers in the kits tho.

now here is a question. does the tie rod bottom out into the rack before it runs out of thread? if so... is that why the large washer "rack stops" are included?

Here's a picture of the washers that you guys are talking about:

Picture with washer installed.....
Click to view attachment

Threads do not bottom out.
Spacers limit the amount of travel lock to lock.
I just fixed a rack on a 83 Vanagon exact same thing happpend to him. Fortunatley he was also going slow. We screwed it back in and put a good ole fashioned UMPH on the thng and it's been fine.

Uhhhhhhh... you mean "Ass" don't ya?

Well ya gotta 1st determine if the guy has enough ass to tighten the damn thing.
Good ole fashioned Umph is more like a specific torque spec.

Little bit less than Really Effin tight.

I like to put a bit of blue loctite on those threads before I screw it in. Not red, blue.
Somebody's gonna come up with some good reason not to use it here, but the tie rod obviously unscrewed it's self, and if there had been some loctite on there in the first place it wouldn't have happened, spacers or no spacers.
I also hit my wrench with a big hammer to do the final tightening on these, just to make sure. It would be pretty hard to ever tear up those threads by over tightening, I just want to be sure it's tight.

Blue loctite would be a fine idea. But this situation sounds like installer error. Not tightened down enough. Loctite, isn't a bad idea, it just shouldn't be necessary.

If there are no spacers (big washers), please check the outer tie-rod ends.

The washers will also space out the tie rod to engage the tie rod end by the same amount. (ie: without the spacer, you have that much less thread engagement with the outer tie-rod end.) You don't want those to unscrew themselves either, and you don't want only 1-2 threads of engagement.

Good luck with it.

The outer tie rod does not look right - it is completely threaded on. Maybe the person who aligned it used the inner for the adjustment and it was left loose (baaaad).

I have to agree... Seems the same to me. Not all alignment shops are experienced in that sense...

I went home at lunch and took the boot off the passenger side. There is not a spacer on it either.

Here are a couple of photo's as best as I could get with the boot pulled back. It looks like the right side is threaded in all the way.

I guess I'll use some blue locktite and screw the driver's side back in. I'll probably drive it around the neighborhood a little and check it out before I drive it to a shop to have the alignment checked out. After the alignment, I guess I need to check it again and be sure they don't back it out of the steering rack, rather than making the adjustment at the other end.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

Can you see threads on the tie rod on the end that didn't become disconnected?

find the big washers... like john mentioned, in addition to being a rack stop, they also ensure your outer tie rod end has more than a few threads of engagement on it....

So far it looks like all the adjustment was done with the end that fell apart. Probably only a few threads of engagement.

you are so lucky. i don't get how there can be 0 threads showing on the outside without the spacers. that should cause the outer end threads to be way exposed to make up for the increased overall distance. it just doesn't add up.

k

Assuming that the rack side was screwed in all the way, I see what you are getting at......However, this looks more and more that it was never tightened in the first place and it was used for adjustment. It must have been hanging on by only a thread or two.....Big time lucky!. Someone's looking out for you.

Get the washers and do it right this time.

Anyone have the spec on the washers?

45mm OD
16.5mm ID
7.5mm thick