Inner & Outer Tie Rod size issue (W123)
 

It's amazing how many weekend projects end up this way...

Today I ripped all of the nasty old tie rod assemblies out, as well as the idler arm, drag link, and steering shock. The idler arm repair went well, despite the fact that the online company I ordered it from sent me a repair kit which had been opened, and was missing the M16 - 1.5 nut. The drag link went in perfectly as well.

Upon trying to install the two new tie rod assemblies, I discovered a problem. All four tie rods fit perfectly at the wheel side, but none of them fit the idler arm or the pitman arm. the tapered hole in both of them is smaller.

What gives? Did the ysend me bunk parts, or is my car weird? Where do I find the right inner tie rods? They're al listed as being the same inside or out, when they are clearly not.

Car in question is in my signature.

I replaced a tie rod in my '82 300, no problems. Left and right are interchangeable I ordered the parts from here http://*************** If you receive a new part that obviously has been opened, send it back.

Well, I would like to report that I was having a case of the stupids yesterday.

After posting here, I went outside and ranted for a while before deciding to grab my dial indicator and compare tie rod shaft diameter. It was then that I realised that the old tie rod ends were each the same size, and that I had been attempting to install the new inner tie rods from the bottom up, instead of top down. Tapered connections don't work that way!

I'm supposedly pretty smart, but times like this make me wonder if that's accurate.