I was reading this Article at the Off-Road.com tech web site about rebulidng the idler arm. I have looseness in my steering and the steering is wandering, so I figured that I would try this rebulid to see if that corrects the problem.. I just have a couple of questions (please keep in mind that I am a newbie at auto repair, but I feel that my technical skills are adequtite to be able to do this job)

Question 1:
It says in the article that I need a tire rod puller to remove the tie rod end from the idler arm... is this a diffcult task (never used one before) ?

Question 2:
The article also stated that the front toe setting may need to be reset, how is this done? ( I do have a warantee on my alingmet that still has 9 months on it.. I just wanted to get it close so the shop will honor the warantee)

Hopefully these questions are pretty easy to answer...

Thanks in advance

Eric

 

I did that bushing replacement because of that tech article too. I found Pepboys and some others will loan tools for free and I got a puller from them. It was fairly easy and my puller didn't even fit right. I didn't do anything with the toe setting and everything seems fine. My bushings were not worn at all even though I had 95000 miles on them, but I was still glad I did it because I found some corrosion in there and was able to fix that.

I think the alignment will only change if the bushings were really worn out and you had an alignment done then put in new bushings. My bushings were good so no change with my alignment. I wouldn't try to do the alignment myself.

 

I have found that the Idler arm gusset from Downey works perfect for preserving your idler arm after putting a new one on or rebuilding one in this case...

 

Thanks for the replys.. when I can get some free time I'll give the rebuild a shot... anybody know about that front toe setting?

Eric