Bad inner tie rod ?? 1993 240 sedan
 

1993 240 sedan, I

just recently began getting a belching type crunch for just a second in my break pedal when almost coming to a complete stop . It gives my steering wheel a tiny shake at the same time . I literally just replaced all brakes , pads , rotors and calipers and it still does it . My mechanic said my drivers side inner tie rod was shot . Could this cause that brief crunch in my break pedal . It does not do it while breaking just when coming to a complete stop . If anyone has been down this road let me know . Thanks everybody .
Vince

jack up your front wheels, put the front of the car on jack stands

have someone grab the front wheel at 3 oclock and 9 oclock and rock it back and forth like they are trying to steer the wheel. you get under the car, and inspect the tie rod... pull the boot off the inner end, and find where the rod goes into the inner ball joint... if the rod and ball are moving, and the socket and rack aren't, you need to replace that inner ball joint.

they look like this,
http://pierce.smugmug.com/By-Date/20...MG_0071-X2.jpg

pretty easy job. complication is, there's two styles of racks, ones with inner and outer threads on the rack end of the inner tie rod. one kind is for TRW/CAM racks, and the other kind is for ZF racks. you're supposed to be able to tell from the outer end of the boot, if its skinny and tied directly to the rod its one kind, and if it has a flat disc shaped end, its the other kind. guess what, our 240 had the skinny end boot without the disk, but the wrong kind of rods, huh.

That's a huge help , thank you. I am going to do the job with a friend . While I am down there taking things apart i am going to do the ball joints as well . Do you think that momentary vibrating just before coming to a complete stop could be coming from that inner tie rod ? I really would like to try to complete all the work in one day so I don't have to align it more than once .