I was going to take off the whole steering knuckle but realized I didn't need to do that to get the balljoint back in the spindle, all I had to do there was take off the control arm and then knock it in from there instead of leaving the control arm on as per someone on here which worked fine.

What I did though before doing that was break free the tierod end balljoint nut. I DID NOT loosen the tierod locknut on the inner end (the part where you have to count how many turns so when you put it all back together you need to remember that part.

My book for the tierod end balljoint nut just says to install new nut and tighten to torque specs... do I have to undo the tierod locknut a half a turn and then tighten the balljoint nut ? I can't believe I did that and I realized what I had done after I went to get the control arm off instead.

Thanks for everyones help.

 

if your going to use a torque wrench yeah , but in most cases if you really tightened that nut and used a cotter pin it should be good to go , the only time i ever use a torque wrench is when i'm doing headbolts and pressure plates

 

I just reread my post and forgot to say when I loosened the tierod balljoint nut and tried to retorque/tighten, it would just keep spinning like I screwed something up.

If I loosen the locknut on the other end of the tierod by the half turn I can't see how that will help me tighten the other nut which just keeps spinning. I am hoping I didn't screw up the threads and would then need a new outer tierod and have to go through all that .. I want to get my volvo back on the road ASAP instead of using my gas guzzler all the time.

Just for clarification since my camera is dead. Where the passenger side tierod connects to the steering knuckle, the nut that holds the tirerod to it is what I loosened but it keeps spinning when trying to retighten and I wanted to figure out what I messed up haha.

The tierod end that pokes out past the nut keeps spinning with the nut if that helps

 

Lo and behold I used the laws of physics

I pushed up on the tierod lightly with a jack and it tightened to spec.