Swapped in some outer tie rods on the Ridgeline. What is weird is the castle nut slots are above where the cotter pin slots through the bolt. In other words the cotter pin will not prevent the nut from backing off but it will stop the nut from coming completely off.
Been chasing a strange occasional pop sensation in the steering wheel and I seemed to have reduced it but not eliminated it entirely.
sway bar bushings
sway bar links
lower control arms
strut assemblies
outer tie rods (inners were fine)
steering rack seems tight.
Out of ideas and frankly no one notices but me so I'll try to forget about it.
The upside is the Ridge has new knees for the next 200k kms.
Sounds like it's probably steering column/shaft related. Escalade had a weird knock in the steering when I got it, replaced the lower steering shaft (easy job), solved the problem.
Ding! Ding! Ding! we have a winner! If I could give you a big sloppy kiss I would.
![Grin ;D](https://www.autos.ca/forum/Smileys/CarTalk/grin.gif)
So to summarize I have a strange popping sensation in the steering wheel usually returning to center.
So I replaced in order: (no improvement each time)
1) sway bar bushings (cheap $20).
2) End links ($50)
3) lower control arms (getting expensive)
4) strut assemblies (pricey)
In the end I checked under the dash and retorqued a 10mm and 12mm bolt on the intermediate steering shaft (clamp around splines). 5 minutes of time and zero cost. Bingo!
Pricey lessons lately.
![Grin ;D](https://www.autos.ca/forum/Smileys/CarTalk/grin.gif)
It is riding nicer with the new front end so some of it was not in vain.