For years, a leaking E30 power steering rack left you with three choices: reseal it yourself, buy a rebuilt or exchange unit, or “upgrade” to a different rack, such as the quicker Z3 rack with an adapter kit. BMW’s own exchange rack (32 13 1 127 793) is no longer available.

Four aftermarket brands now list brand-new replacement racks for left-hand-drive E30s: Triscan 8510 11420, MAPCO 29860, RIDEX 286S0086 and STARK SKSG-0530086. All four are new, standard-ratio replacements for the factory ZF hydraulic rack, and their product photos are so alike that they very likely come from the same factory.

I have no experience with any of these racks, so this isn’t a recommendation. It’s just interesting to see new ones appear after all these years.

Triscan 8510 11420

Photos: Triscan

MAPCO 29860

Photos: MAPCO

RIDEX 286S0086

Photos: RIDEX

STARK SKSG-0530086

Photos: STARK

Frankberg 5481FB0018914 (possibly)

Frankberg lists a rack for the same cars that may well be the same unit, pictures seem to indicate similar but they are small and sparse. Its listed length is also slightly different, at 1033 mm instead of 1040–1045 mm, and it comes with tie rods, so it could be a different rack.

One rack, four boxes?

Put the photos side by side and the details match: the ribbed silver valve housing, the blue star-shaped port plugs, the black rubber seal on the pinion, the looped hard lines and the black rack tube with its mounting bracket. None of the four brands says who makes the rack. The listed lengths differ by 5 mm (1040 mm for MAPCO, RIDEX and STARK, 1045 mm for Triscan), which is about how much catalogue measurements vary, and Triscan and MAPCO list the same BMW part numbers.

This entry was posted on November 4, 2026 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Interesting Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.