Steering rack ends / inner tie rods

[festy]

Working out which rack ends fit the Alfetta's ZF steering rack was way harder than it needed to be, so I'm posting the info here to hopefully save someone else the hassle one day.

There are two(?) types of steering racks used in Alfettas - Spica and ZF. I have 4 Alfetta steering racks here and they're all ZFs, so I'm guessing those are the more common type in RHD Alfettas at least.

The ZF racks take rack ends with a 14x1.5 male thread on both ends, and an overall length of ~245mm.
Conveniently enough, so do many mid 80's Toyotas like MA70 supra, SV11 Camry, YR31 Tarago etc so these rack ends are cheap and common.
There's a whole bunch of aftermarket part numbers for these, but RE879 is a common one that most local parts shops will have on the shelf.
Left and right hand sides are the same, so you'll need two of them. Expect to pay around $60-$120/pair depending where you go.

[TEE Z2]

That super autos place has them for 39.99

[festy]

Here's a pic of a new RE879 rack end fitted to a spare Alfetta ZF rack, the only practical difference between them is that the original one needs a 28mm spanner whereas the RE879 needs a 30mm spanner.

That super autos place has them for 39.99

That sounds about right - I paid $59.95 for a pair, whereas Supercheap has them for $62 each.

[festy]

I finally finished freshening up my spare rack and installing it today.
Total cost was about $130 ($60 inner tie rods, $55 outers, $12 to replace one torn boot)

Outer tie rod ends: M14x1.5 RH female thread. BTR4177, TE1783, JTE136 are common part numbers for cross referencing.
Rack boots: 47x12x180mm. Repco RRB082 are $12 each. They advertise it as a 'kit' but only includes one boot.

And if you forget to measure the rack before pulling it apart, 1155mm between the centers of the outer tie rods will steer well enough to get to an alignment shop (or at least that was the measurement for mine)

[GTVeloce]

Thanks feisty that's very helpful. I have recently rebuilt an alfetta rack (the actual rack and pinion part) and need tie rods and rack ends to finish it off so this is very timely.