For model years 2010–2015, the Repair Manual series (more info) gives two torque specifications, both for the tie rod end sub-assemblies (outer tie rods): Tie rod end sub-assembly × Steering knuckle: 49 N·m (36 ft.-lb.) Tie rod end sub-assembly lock nut: 74 N·m (55 ft.-lb.) As shown in catalog Figure 45-05, Front Steering Gear & Link, the inner tie rods aren’t sold separately from the steering gear assembly, for which the Repair Manual disassembly and reassembly procedures cover only the boots, boot clamps, and boot clips. Since further disassembly is beyond dealers’ level of repair, no torque specifications for reassembly are given.
So according to that manual they expect you to spend 1k to get an alignment if the camber nut is frozen??
If you are only changing the ends, you don't have to go through everything. Just mark where the old tie rod is, and count the number of turn to remove it. Check that the new one is the same as the original one. Then turn the same number of turns to install. Grease the tie rod before installing the tie rod end. This should get you very close to where the alignment is. And if the car drove straight before, it should afterward. The steering wheel should also be positioned correctly as your drive. If it's off a little, you can adjust the ends together to straighten out the wheel. That should hold you over until you get an alignment. It's BEST to get an alignment so you know it's correct and you won't get excess where on the inner or outer tread on the tires. I haven't seen a Prius rack and pinion unit with the inner boot off, but I'd bet you the inner tie rods ARE replaceable. The trick may be in FINDING them. But, since they are not pivoting as much as the outer ones, there is a lot less where and they usually last life of the rack and pinion unit.
So interesting. I was told by alignment people that camber can't be adjusted. And one place in Mendel's PDF (thanks!) says the same. BUT elsewhere, it explains how to adjust camber, by swapping out bolt lengths??!!
From what I saw, only toe can be set. I have not replaced the struts yet, but usually there's enough play with the bolt and the holes on the strut and control are to adjust the camber. The most important thing is the caster, which causes the car to pull left or right.
Sorry to resurrect an older thread, but I actually did just replace both the inner and outer tie rods on my 2015. I will be taking it into a shop today for an alignment, but it is possible to replace the inner tie rods, but only with aftermarket parts. As much as I'd prefer to use OEM stuff, for this case I had to go with aftermarket. The inner ones on the car were quite loose and had a lot of play, but the new parts were very solid, and I also replaced the boots and clamps, as needed. It's actually a very easy job, and used an inner tie rod removal tool from Harbor Freight. Because there are no torque specs listed for the inner tie rods, I just had to use the old good and tight rule. The parts did come with thread lock pre-applied on them, as well.
@Mendel and @ASRDogman -- I've come back and took a closer look at all this. Now I'm quite confused. Look at the service manual excerpt Mendel shared above. pp 20-24 provide explicit instructions on adjusting Camber. It's done by replacing certain bolts with different length bolts. p 29 specifically says "HINT: Camber is not adjustable" ??? This makes absolutely no sense. Adjustable as they say, or not?
A lot of car don't have caster or camber adjustments. But, you can a bolt/cam set up to replace one of the bolts on the strut so you can adjust the camber. Why? Don't know. CASTER is more important because that is what causes the car to drive one way or the other.
It's not the length of the bolts, it's the diameter. The top of the knuckle attaches to the strut with two bolts, in a vertical(ish) line. The bolts from the factory are just about the right diameter to fill the holes completely, so the knuckle and strut can pretty much only go together with one camber, those holes exactly aligned. If you need to adjust the camber a bit, there are slightly skinnier bolts. With skinny bolts in wider holes, there's a little bit of slop. Before you torque the bolts down, you can lean the slop as far as possible one way, for more + camber, or lean the slop as far as possible the other way, for more − camber. For different amounts of adjustment, they actually have the original-size bolts and three different flavors that are skinnier by different amounts. And you don't have to use the same diameter bolt in the top and bottom holes. So in Table 1 and Table 2, they are giving you seven different choices (A through G) of which bolt to use in the top hole and which to use in the bottom hole, and for each choice you can either lean the knuckle/strut in the + or − camber direction against the resulting slop, so that gives you about 13 different camber adjustments, six on either side of the "both factory bolts" one.
Interesting! I independently (re)invented that camber adjusting strategy when new aftermarket struts threw camber off a bit on my '81 Mazda. I used inch-dimensioned bolts that were slightly smaller than the original metric bolts.
GREAT! That makes total sense. SO, why does the exact same document say camber isn't adjustable? Do they really mean: not adjustable in a nice simple way?
I will wait for someone with experience serving as editor of a series of 8,000 page Japanese documents translated to English to weigh in on how something like that might happen.
