So I gave the wheel the old 9-and-3 wiggle, and it definitely moves about half an inch at the outer edge of the wheel and clunks pretty loudly at the end of each movement. I'm worried that sounds more like a ball joint than a tie rod.

Any feedback/ideas? Since mine is a 95 I have to replace the whole LCA, and that starts to get expensive...

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RIP:
2011 E350 BlueTEC, Schwartz 81k (totaled by uninsured drunk driver)
1964 Unimog 404.1 (wrongfully towed by the city)
1994 E320, Brilliantsilber 208k (transmission shuffled off after sudden catastrophic fluid loss)
1982 300D, Silberblau under a blue repaint 256k (sold for parts)
1995 E320 Polarweiss, 131k (sold for parts)
1995 E300D Polarweiss, 287k (totaled by drunk driver)