Plastic cover on inner tie rod

[DIYguy]

Hi all
Changing inner and outer tie rods and when I took the boot off I found this plastic cover that seems to be captive on the inner tie rod. It slides in and out about a quarter inch so I think it’s stuck on some dimension of the rack? So I can’t get the tool on the inner

Is this plastic cover needed? Maybe I’m just being too gentle by not pushing it back in hard enough?

 

[DIYguy]

And this is it slid outward. It’s more like 1/2” movement.

 

[DIYguy]

FYI for anyone else… I ended up putting a small flathead screwdriver under it and tapping with a hammer and it popped back and over the ridge. That plastic was a bit flexible.

 

[DIYguy]

So I used Delphi (made in Turkey). Partly because I liked that the design had a six sided hex built into the tie rod instead of only 2 flat sides. This allowed me to simply use a crescent wrench to tighten it well instead of the tie rod tool since I could always find an angle for the wrench.

I used a clamp on tool and breaker bar with extension to remove the old one which worked great.

Here are a few other photos.

 

[Mooseman]

Just looking and thinking about that plastic cover, I think it's to protect the rubber bellows from rubbing on the tie rods as they move in and out.

Did you use red Loctite on them? My ACDelcos came with it.

 

[DIYguy]

Yes I think you are correct it must be to prevent an edge from rubbing somewhere. It just threw me as I didn’t see them in any “how to” videos for the Trailblazer. (But I have a 2005 Isuzu Ascender so I’ve seen other small differences occasionally).

I used a “good dab” of blue/medium strength threadlocker on the inner tie rod threads. This one… https://www.harborfreight.com/threadlocker-no-42-10-ml-medium-strength-65192.html

Thanks for checking!