Steering Tie rods and Tie Rod Ends

[frogisland]

Some help required here re BMW steering tie rods and tie rod ends.

Placed my tie rods in the for sale section. Found my WN password and looked up what i bought a few years ago. I bought tie rods for my e9 and was sold 32211111989...which are actually 73-79 e3 tie rods.

Outer tie rod complete fits for all models and years of manufacturing you need 2 for 1 car

A32211111989

€142.80

Ordered: 2 Shipped: 2

€285.60

The pre-73 e3 part number is 32211102364 which is also the e9 part number. Obviously 32211111989 therefore fits the e9, hence W&N previously selling them as such. Is there a difference?

Could it be the link tube - it is slightly longer than the e12 ones, but had these e3 ones fitted up to my e9 without issue. I would have noticed a difference to the old used ones i had also.

Thoughts?

 

[jpg10]

I looked at them both on ECS tuning as they're both on there so can compare via the images also:-
Genuine BMW - 32211111989 - Tie Rod - Priced Each (32-21-1-111-989) (ecstuning.com) which look identical to yours
Genuine BMW - 32211102364 - Tie Rod Assembly - Priced Each (32-21-1-102-364) (ecstuning.com) which is correct according to RealOEM but on ECS say they are for the E3

Checked on RealOEM by going via the model - it does look the correct part according to RealOEM as both 4015 and 2364 were interchangeable on the E3 & E9 (looks like 2364 was the lighter product and was 1.055kg vs 1.2kg).

Your 1989 part was introduced in Mar 1973 and is 1.058kg and was on the whole E3 range, it lists it here as interchangeable between all three (1989, 4015 & 2364) here :- RealOEM.com - Online BMW Parts Catalog

Don't think you're going mad. W&N have both the E3 & E9 as having 2364 for the tie rod and 1989 is just a later iteration of the E3 tie rod so think you're good as they are interchangeable. They probably didn't bother to update the superceedence for the E9 but it looks like both 4015 & 2364 were stopped and replaced by 1989 by the dates.

I suspect someone much more savvy may be able to give you more detail.

 

[HB Chris]

74 e3 has the longer control arm and tension strut so these are probably 20mm longer but I would think they could still work. This is another case of where you can’t trust RealOEM as they imply a part fits but it doesn’t unless you swap struts and control arms.