Reg. nut instead of castle nut/pin on tie rod end?

[Logan]

For some reason, I felt the need to check the front brakes and tie rods on our ’04 galant (seeing as I haven’t done so since we bought the car in Nov. 2014) and I noticed something peculiar: the nuts on the outer tie rods aren’t castle nuts, I’m not even sure if they’re nylon locknuts (covered in various dirt/grime and I was already frustrated and too tired to investigate further) Considering what happened with my eclipse one night (the nut and pin somehow vanished; luckily I was only going ~30 and didn’t crash into anything) and the already skittish rear end, I don’t plan on recreating that. We haven’t had any issues with this since we bought the car, but should I consider replacing the tie rod end, or would something like Loctite be a viable- as well as cheaper- solution?

Topic

[zero]

If it’s OE it probably has a nylock, or other self locking nut on it. An OE likely won’t have a hole for a cotter pin either.

[Jim Davis]

If the tie rod is in good shape, just clean the nut up and see if its a nylock, if you are not sure, I wouldn’t take it off, but if you want a piece of mind, how about getting another nut the same size and double nutting it.

[Author]

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