So I removed my old coilovers yesterday and put RCE yellows + stock struts on for the time being (current job has me driving to Lawrencevile from Buckhead, ugh) Anyway, during the install, I also put a new set of whiteline steering rack bushings on. Being the moron that I am, I completely forgot to mark the original position on the steering rack before disconnecting it from the hub. Any ideas on how difficult this would be to return to stock?
Considering I can figure out how to replace my rack with an entirely new rack that came from a car 2,000 miles away and didn't have tie rod ends, if the guy doing the alignment can't you don't want him doing your alignment.
Not to thread hijack, but I didn't think that you needed to remove anything that would affect alignment during steering rack bushing install. I am thinking about doing this and am interested in pointers.
You can drop the rack and bend the lines out of the way enough to cut the old bushings off. So, no, you don't need to take the tie rods ends off. HOWEVER, if you're going to go this far, it's not a bad idea to swap in an '04 STi rack too. It'll only add an hour or two to the job. I found one for $200 shipped. A WRX rack is 16:1 and the STi rack is 13:1. It's noticeable!