maineman

take them to a garage and have them undo the strut for you.
If I remember correctly the nut on the tie rod pushes up against the lock collar .You've got to move the lock collar back to be able to rotate the tie rod.

hubturn

Get a new tie rod complete with tie rod end and save yourself the headache. That thing is rusted solid and the threads are almost shot. Chances are good the bushing on the other end that connects to the power steering rack is worn. That bushing is not replaceable. A complete tie rod is about $140 at Audi, about half that on the after market. Go to Audi and ask to look at the parts screen and point out what you are disassembling and order new lock nuts, about $1.50 each.

Lago Blue

Luxus is referring to a Bilstein install issue and a solution to it, but Astral has mentioned he is installing KYBs. I believe KYBs do not share the Bilstein base topography, but more closely mimic the OEM damper base shape, which is less likely to hang-up on the strut-tube receiver edge, on install. Therefore the "hose" should not be necessary here, just careful assembly.

IIRC, the threaded adjuster is only available as part of the entire tie-rod. Yours may still clean up nicely. Re-install on car and soak with penetrating oil, and be patient.

I have seen gas torches used here but I am not a fan of that technique. Consider the job that that little adjuster must do, do you really want to heat it cherry-red? Also those in a hurry who rush to torches are also likely to not re-plate or paint the parts once loose. Neglect is the root cause here, rust is only the result, not the culprit. Treat root cause correctly and it is unlikely to rust in future. Having these freed up for your mechanic will allow him no excuse not to complete the alignment in an hour.

I guess it is important to mention that when you are caught up in trying to make measurable progress, what can get lost is a proper picture of the total job, where you should want to finish up at; and how to best get there. For instance, there are probably spare strut-tubes and tie-rod adjusters at the wreckers, harvest-able that could be readied; separately.

Your strut cap-nuts are fused onto the strut-tubes by years of corrosion activity. This corrosion heads downhill and often seals the lower edge of the cap on the strut closed; preventing any penetrating oil from entering. Because the surface area of what, the ten internal threads of the cap-nut times the diameter of the strut tube, equals a huge rust grip area that you will not easily overcome with just pipe-wrenches or heat. Read my post again WRT using a hack-saw to cut diagonally across the O.D. of the nut as required to get P.-oil on those threads. It's fast, simple and easy.

The cap-nut will actually spring open slightly when your angled cut reaches through at the nut's lower edge.

Astral

I ordered replacement tie rod assemblies... $80 + ship at advance auto after a coupon. Will return the TREs. I sprayed the tie rod mounting bolts on the carrier plate with some Kroil last night, so hopefully those will come off without much issue. I did notice the bushings were kinda mushy on the inside, given the rust, I bet it's the original inner tie rods.

I read this tip to cover the tie rod adjuster in a bike inner tube and zip-tie it, to keep the elements out. (Makeshift boot.) Sounds like a good idea, that should keep the threads clean.

I'll try hitting up a garage to pop off the strut cap. I don't want to cut into the threads to pop it off, as I don't have a replacement strut cap to tighten back on it. If something gets damaged, I need to go to a junkyard anyway and I doubt they would sell me just the strut cap.

Astral

Also, Lago Blue, I agree, it seems that every alignment shop just torches the locknuts to get them moving. There's never any penetrating oil in sight. I was just attempting to tidy up the front toe on my 2002 daily driver with 193K and I could see the threads were rusty, probably from all the torching. I also couldn't get the locknut moving (but didn't try heat).

CRAZY_RUSSIAN

I'm going to a junk yard ether on Friday or Sunday, i know there is a B4 out there, so let me know if you are interested, cars out here are rust free, so it maybe worth shipping the whole set of struts. let me know

Astral

Hey Crazy Russian, thanks for the advice, that's actually a really good idea, but for the future.

I went to a local shop this morning and had them take the caps off. One of them is in a fairly good condition, rotating smoothly and easily and the other one is has a bunch of resistance. They said they had to heat them cherry red to pop the caps off. I ditched the old struts at their place.

Here are the strut mounts with the caps loosened:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/uksi/5102732466/" title="Finally, strut caps removed by ilp, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1140/5102732466_e50e4e15d0_z.jpg" width="640" height="478" alt="Finally, strut caps removed" /></a>

Also, last night I replaced the entire tie rod assemblies. Turned out the passenger side one had a bad bushing, whereas the driver's side one still had a good bushing. So, passenger side had a good TR end but bad inside and the opposite on the driver's side.

It was a lot of "fun" working with the carrier plate and the inner tie rod mount. It was easy enough to loosen the inner tie rod bolts, after a night of penetrating oil soaking, but getting the carrier plate moved, so I could actually remove the tie rods, was much more time consuming. The bolts that mount the carrier plate go from the top to the bottom, attaching to locking nuts at the bottom. At the first sight, they seem to be impossible to get to, sitting right above the transmission.

I began by turning the wheel all the way to the right. This allowed me to access the bottom of the carrier plate through the passenger side wheel well and remove the 17mm nuts. It took a little convincing (and generous PB Blaster) to break them loose, but I was able to sneak a 28" breaker bar there and give it some gentle pushes to break it free.

However, the bolts, which go from the top of the carrier plate thru the bottom, did not want to slide up on their own. I had to use two 1/2" size extensions and a 17mm deep socket, attached to an electric impact gun to loosen them.

It took a few seconds of impact to break them loose and, to my surprise, they seemed to unscrew from the top of the carrier plate. I don't think that there's an intentionally-designed thread there, but I could be wrong. It sure acted as though the top plate was threaded. Here are the bolts, partially unbolted:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/uksi/5102703666/" title="Bolts on top of steering carrier plate by ilp, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1360/5102703666_e0616c1270.jpg" width="500" height="374" alt="Bolts on top of steering carrier plate" /></a>

On the plus side, once I reinstalled these bolts and tightened them, I didn't have to worry about the bolt turning while I was tightening the nut on the bottom.

Basically, a lot of steering rack movement from left to right (easiest way to get to top bolts and inner tie rod nuts is steering all the way left) and patience, I got the fresh ones in. These are the old tie rod assemblies:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/uksi/5102125399/" title="Old tie rod assemblies by ilp, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1054/5102125399_e70eea2e72_z.jpg" width="640" height="478" alt="Old tie rod assemblies" /></a>

I wonder if anybody would want these. If one were to break the seized parts loose, restore the threads, replace the one bad TRE and refresh the inside bushings, one would have a good set of tie rod assemblies to work with. One would also then have a lot of patience.

CRAZY_RUSSIAN

those bolt that u thought were just pressed in, are actually threaded in the rack and pinion. good to hear that you have made some progress:-) let us know when you have the whole thing back together and how it feels:-) btw, what are you using for strut mounts? i hope you are not going stock, as those things suck! the mayle heavy duty ones are also know to fail in about 6-8 month (ask me how i know) everything else thats aftermarket will fail even sooner. i have a set of mount savers on my, but im actually going to sell them and get a set of 034 mounts and see how long those last (i'm a very spirited driver, so that defiantly doesn't help)

Astral

I bought 034 street density strut mounts! So should be good for a while.

Looking at all the slop in the steering, I should've probably ordered track density.

CRAZY_RUSSIAN

cool:-) let me know what you think with those mounts :-)