I know the later years are wider. Is there a difference in the body widths?

I was running an '84 rack. Got tagged on the track and bent an inner tie rod so put a later year rack in. As a panic fix to get back on the track (24hr racing) Because it was wider, I cut some threads off the inner tie rods to make it work.

I only remembered about cutting the inners when I went to re-install the rack (after switching to a '96 suspension) and everything is massively toed in.

My question: I know it's a later year rack, just not from what year. I don't remember how much of the inners I cut off. Can I just replace the inners or is there a width variance among the bodies of the later year racks?

Thanks!

 

There is definitely a difference.

I just went through this scenario with Junior from TurnOne.

Story time. I buy a Z51 rack from "Company" with a 5 year warranty, pay an extra 200 dollars because my exchange rack wasn't a Z51. This rack is "reman'd." The rack started leaking the day I put it in. Contacted "Company" and they said to rip the rack out and send it to them and it will have about an 8 week turnaround. I said F that, it's driving season, put in a bottle of stop leak and drove it. It would need topping off like once a month.

2 years later, the leak has gotten progressively worse and I'm sick of filling this thing up and cleaning my garage floor. I send my rack to TurnOne. Junior calls me with bad news -all the internals are basically shot and corroded to the point that he can't use them. I source another rack, a Z51 from an 89 and have it shipped directly to him, thinking that the only difference was the inner tie rod length.

Junior said that over the course of production, there were 4 (might be 3, not sure) different lengths of the rack shafts. Mine in particular was .5" wider than the first rack I sent him. I asked him to put it together anyways, and I'll figure it out when it gets here. He alluded to the idea that I would probably need a "bump steer kit" if the car behaved poorly.

I only drive my car on the street, but put it together without a bump steer kit. I'm not a professional on suspension setups but there is no noticeable ill-effects of putting it in without a bump-steer kit. The car handles fine.


Jeremy

 

Inner tie rod -- looks to me that '88 - '92 are the same and the '93+ are different at least by part #. The difference appears to be internals and rack body because the boots have different part # also. If there were a part # molded into the boot you could likely ID the rack year using that.

 

From the horse's mouth:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...od-length.html

 

My comments were regarding the '88+ that has an increased width vs the '87 and earlier. Your link references an earlier than '87 to an '88('91) and later. There's for sure discrepancies for your 'reference'. I understood everything Junior mentioned to you!!

If the OP can ID what year 'later' he has then he only needs the appropriate inner. He cut threads from the threaded ends of the 'inner' to the outer.