When replacing my 23 year old outer tie rod, ran into a couple of rusting issues, most likely will have to cut it off. I now am just replacing the whole inner and outer but ran into another unseen circumstance, there seems to be a rubber casing on the top part of inner tie rod. Has anyone run into this, and can I just remove it by prying off with a thin flat head screwdriver? I have the tie rod removal tool but don't know if I should attempt to remove it with the casing in place of move it out of the way.

 

took care of it, just a rubber boot, just remove it.