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Ford Crown Victoria / Mercury
Grand Marquis Tie Rod Replacement Instructions

Troubeshooting

1. Unable to remove tie rod ends fron center-link and/or spindle:
• These dudes are sometime quite hard to remove especially if they have been in place for many years. You can soak the shaft overnight with a thread release solvent (e.g., Liquid Wrench, etc.) to help loosen them. You can also try using an impact wrench with a pickle fork attachment if you have one. The best advice is to use good, correclty sized pickle forks and don't be shy with the hammer. You will need to hit them hard and several times to break these bad-boys loose. Also, if you pickle fork is too small and provides too small a wedge you won't be able to get enough "wedge" force on the tie rod end to break it loose. You can double-up 2 pickle forks (using one as a stationary wedge) to increase the span of the wedge but you also increase the chance you are going to hit yourself with a very heavy hammer.
2. Unable to remove and re-use the old adjusting sleeves:
• It's not uncommon for these sleeves to sieze due to rust, years of road grime, etc. If you can't get them off or they look too corroded to re-use just buy news ones like we did (our sleeves were $11 each). It will make the alignment technicians job easier as well.