[DeTomaso] Ferrari 308 steering rack - which one?

Richard Barkley rlbpantera at earthlink.net
Mon Aug 3 17:39:59 EDT 2015


In getting ready to buy a new replacement rack for Zonkey I decided to 
do a little research on the Ferrari 308 compatible racks I'd been 
reading about. When I did his restoration I rebuilt the rack. Water had 
gotten in the pinion area and rusted out the lower bearing and pitted 
the rack. A new one for $120 or so sounds pretty good and has to be 
better than what I have.

 From some of the posts on this and the PI forum it appeared that there 
may be at least two different after market mfgrs (but maybe not, just 
cut to the final paragraphs for my speculation). Some months ago, their 
prices were both in the low to mid $200s. Now one is $120 and the other 
in the low $400s. Hmmmm. So I started doing some googling. One thing to 
know is that the Ferrari OEM PN is 104498. This can be of some help in 
searching.

80-70007 AN is the mfg part # of the BUYAUTOPARTS rack. This is the one 
that Asa Jay reported on last week.
http://poca.com/pipermail/detomaso_poca.com/2015-July/234326.html

The ebay price is $119.95 with free shipping. At their website it's 
$123.75. At that price, is almost has to be manufactured in China (which 
isn't necessarily a bad thing).

Here are the links:
http://www.buyautoparts.com/buynow/1984/Ferrari/308/Manual_Steering_Rack
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BRAND-NEW-MANUAL-STEERING-RACK-AND-PINION-GEAR-ASSEMBLY-FOR-FERRARI-DINO-308-GT4-/290640157982

It is also sold by http://www.buy-steering.com and 
http://www.discountsteering.com and some others for a few $ more. Just 
search on the part number.

There is another aftermarket rack with a mfg part # of 4308N. On ebay it 
is sold by APX and Car Steering Experts  for about $400. I seem to 
recall seeing is was around $250 in the spring.

Here's the APX link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/4308N-New-Manual-Steering-Rack-for-Ferrari-308-NEW-Warranty-/330919852533
They also have a website http://apxautoparts.com and sell it there.
RockAuto.com also sells it for $398 + $20 shipping

So, who makes this rack? Searching using 4308N you find the "OEM" is AAE 
Atlantic Automotive Enterprises. APX might be the retail arm of AAE
http://www.aaesteering.com/4308n-new-manual-steering-rack.html
Looking at their website, AAE is a manufacturer of some things I'm sure, 
but maybe not this rack. A little more searching turns up a Chinese 
company that does really make stuff and they seem to be a quality mfgr.:
http://www.natelix.com/eshowshop.asp?/437.html
Their picture is identical to  AAE's except for the background logos.

So who makes the 80-70007 AN version? I don't know. I could only find 
one Chinese mfgr and they seem to be making the "American" AAE part. 
It's quite possible the 80-70007 AN is also made by Natelix, the 
pictures online look pretty much identical. So same mfgr. with different 
importers giving it their own part numbers (and prices)?

The only thing that throws in some doubt is that Asa Jay Laughton has 
the 80-70007 AN and posted pictures on the POCA forum.
http://poca.com/pipermail/detomaso_poca.com/2015-July/234326.html
They show the center tube being black (as it did Mike Drew's Feb. '14 
review), not the bright metal in the online pictures of the 4308N and 
seemingly the 80-70007 AN.

But, realistically, how big is the market for this rack that it would 
support two after market mfgrs? The Natelix listing only shows Ferrari 
as a compatible OEM so the market is pretty small. A brief look at 
wikipedia indicates a total of around 10K. And since nobody actually 
drives their Ferrari, how many are wearing out, and of those, how many 
would put a non-Ferrari part on their car!? Another question is, could 
Ferrari also sourcing from Natelix. It wouldn't surprise me. I've heard 
much of a Rolex's guts are made in China!

Anyway, I just bought the "cheap" version for $119.95. You can probably 
think up all kinds of reasons why the $400 rack should be meaningfully 
better, but I can't!

Richard

-- 
-----
Sincerely, Richard Barkley

To Ski or not to Ski, that is the question!

Richard Barkley (310) 373-6695 (home)
E-mail:  rlbpantera <atsign> earthlink.net
ZONKEY'S home page: http://home.earthlink.net/~rlbpantera





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