ericdwong

May have seen my other posts doing some significant maintenance to my 17 year old car with 200k Anyway I'll have the steering rack out. I'm replacing the Tie Rods since they make all sorts of noise. Are there any other parts of the rack that can wear out besides the passenger bushing? I know the DRM steering bushing is available.

dadaroo

The internals can wear. Not sure how common that is to create handling issues but you have a lot of miles on it.

chevy406

Check to see if you have fluid in either of the end boots. If not, then just slap the steering rack back in.

martysauto

the loose steering was more than likely the tie rod ends. Make sure you check the inner sockets before you reinstall the rack.

Tommyboy92

I recently replaced my rack bushing with the DRM unit, made a surprisingly big difference on my '02 Z06 with 157k miles

ericdwong

I ordered the DRM delrin version, between this and the tie rod ends should feel like a new car

Actually in 2008 I replaced all the ball joints and that made a huge difference too.. thinking about doing it again...

Tommyboy92

I havent done the ball joints, did you get new arms or press the old ones out and new ones in?

martysauto

Did you check the inner tie rod sockets? They are under the rack boots/ bellows. If they are worn the steering will definitely feel loose.

ericdwong

Pressed old ones out and put in Moog (lowers) and Spicers (uppers). I actually did the project twice- first time I put in the poly control arm bushings too but I found the ride a bit too harsh for a daily driven vehicle that never hits the track, so I swapped out the control arms for rubber ones and did the ball joints again.


Not yet- I will this weekend, gotta change the oil anyway. Figured to order the bushing- I can always sell it if I don't wind up using it. The steering is not that bad, but I'm sure after so many years and miles (plus constant exposure) I don't know what it really should feel like

nuts105

This is my 2 cents: I replaced bushing with OEM part. Why? Because the car had incredibly precise steering when new (yep I've been driving the same car for 19 years) so rubber was good enough while it lasted. Basically twitchy when aggressively aligned. Lately steering felt unresponsive and like I had to throw in my weight to make a graceful lane chance. So replaced bushing. That was it, even though old one looked just fine. Now nice twitchy again, and I can change lanes barely touching the wheel. Only when I want to make an aggressive manouever, where it used to almost quantum jump, it still feels sluggish. I'm pretty sure that's the front suspension spring bushing, cause it just makes sense, and the rubber looks in bad shape. Next project new spring. But steering bushing totally worth it, feels much more fun to drive again.
Update: actually after visualizing the suspension better, I now am thinking the final ounce of performance is the control arm bushings, not the spring bushings. Those are also 19 years old, and just like the rack bushing look fine but must also have lost all absorption capacity by now and are just deflecting I'm guessing.
Too bad it's such a PITA to replace those. My hypothesis is that as long as my tires are not shaved they should be able to absorb bumps just fine without much help from the control arm mounts, so I'm not worried about them being too stiff.

fflumpy

i know this is a old thread…is there a difference between the inner tie rod and inner tie rod "socket"? I am suspecting that i have a bad rack because i can feel movement in that area but i dont think its the tie rod…feels like it is "before" the tie rod in the rack. Plus i can see that the rack has a leak in that area.