So, I thought I had an aw11 manual steering rack in my AE86. The rack itself is loose, so I looked up on the interwebs on how to rebuild the rack. I came across this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A3ri-vU1U4

Well, if you jump ahead to about 5:30, he is talking about replacing a plastic bushing inside of the rack. Mine has a metal sleeve. after comparing FSM, I found that I have an AE86 manual rack (i got it from a buddy of mine, it was kicking around in his garage). Here is the FSM diagram of hte AE86 manual rack.

there is a difference between the AE86 and AW11 manual rack and pinion assemblies. it's the bushing that holds the rack in place. The AW11 is a plastic bushing, whereas the AE86 is a metal sleeve/bushing.

Can the AW11 rack be rebuilt with the metal bushing? Or would it be necessary to change over to the '86 rack?

The 86 rack is more like a metal sleeve insert, whereas the AW11 is a plastic bushing that clips into place. They are not interchangeable.

Here is the 86 manual rack:


and here is the AW11 rack:

Darn, that would be an improvement. Changing bushing type would be easier than sourcing an 86 rack.

True, but at the same time, the parts to rebuild an AW11 rack are readily available.