GM 1645256 Steering Knuckle

Lift your vehicle carefully, so its front suspension can hang without support. Lift your car up safely, then remove the tire and wheel, and then the hub and bearings. Unscrew the cotter pin and nut on the tie rod end using J-24319-01 or an equivalent tool. Pull the two separate to free the steering knuckle from the steering tie rod. Lift the vehicle, supporting it well. There are two steps to remove the cotter pin and ball joint stud nut. On Eldorado and Seville, you need separator tool J-35315 or its equivalent to loosen the ball joint from the steering knuckle. Take out the wheel speed sensor if you need to. Loosen and remove the bolts that hold the strut to the steering knuckle. Then drive out the steering knuckle. Before putting the steering knuckle into position, thread bolts through the strut aspect and torque them down to 140 foot-pounds (190 Newton-meter). Join the wheel speed sensor from the anti-lock braking system if needed, and treat it with anti-rust paste before you reassemble it if you removed it from Eldorado and Seville models. Screw the castellated nut onto the ball joint when you attach it to the steering knuckle. On Eldorado and Seville models, apply a torque of 84 inch lbs (10 Nm) on the ball joint nut, and an additional 120° jerk pull on top of that. Make sure you reach the minimum recommended torque of 37 ft. lbs (50 Nm), otherwise check for poor threads and replace ball joint and the steering knuckle assembly if needed. Throw in a fresh cotter pin, and if the first one wouldn't fit square, rotate the nut another 60 degrees to make it work. Never let the nut loosen when you put the pin in. Firmly attach the tie rod end to the steering knuckle using handforce, then install the tie rod end nut, and fasten it with 35 foot pounds of force (48 Newton meters). Use a new cotter pin to keep the end from moving. When we cannot insert the cotter pin due to its position, we can first crank down the nut to 70Nm to make room for insertion. We never loosen the nut to put the pin in when that happens. Put on the hub and bearing unit, add the wheel and tires, then place the car down to check front wheel alignment.