The track rod end joints connect the steering rack to the hub. Although they are a high quality item, they do wear out. Replacement is very easy although the parts are expensive – the joint is made by NMB but can only be bought from Ferrari. The part number is 181882, lists at over £200 and is the same for the 360 and F430.
First of all jack up the car and remove the wheel. The next job is to slacken the lock nut – you’ll need a 22mm spanner for the nut and a 13mm spanner to hold the steering rack rod. The photo below shows where the spanners need to go but this operation should be performed before removing the track rod end.
Next you need to remove the bolt that holds the track rod end to the hub – it is a 10mm hex head and will be very tight so I recommend the use of a long breaker bar. There are also balancing spacers that will come out with the bolt.
Now the hub will turn out of the way to give you better access:
The track rod end can now be unscrewed from the rod. To ensure that the new one goes back in roughly the correct place I wind the locknut up to the exisitng track rod end until it just touches it. I then carefully unwind the track rod end and screw in the new one. Once the new one is just touching the lock nut I know it is in the correct place. However, I do recommend you get the tracking checked ASAP!
Once the new joint is fitted, tighten the lock nut up and then re-fit the bolt that holds it to the hub.
Here’s a picture of an old vs new joint:
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