Berlina Tie Rod Ends

["Damian Magista" <magista@domain.elided>]

My Berlinas steering has got lots of play in it. No surprise for a car
that old. I crawled under it yesterday and poked around a bit. Here's
what I found...the tie rod ends that are closest to the steering box
(drivers side) are sagging and have lots of play. I can grab and move
'em around with my hand. 

Holding the ends to the steering box lever (for lack of the proper
technical term)there seems to be a castellated nut w/ cotter pin. I
imagine I just pull the pin and undo the nut. Undo the ends from the
main rod and install the new ones. This seems fairly straight forward to
me. 

Is this something I can do without jacking the car up? I guess the
question is are there any tricks I should know about so I don't kill
myself. 

Also, I don't imagine that there is anyway to tighten the ends back down
until I can have them replaced or is this impossible? Either way I'm not
really driving the car until the exhaust and tie rod ends have been
taken care of. 

Thanks, 

Damian 

Damian Magista
87 Milano Gold
73 Berlina 2000
Prodata Systems, Inc.  
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