Leaking Steering Box

[DETN8R]

Any ideas?

It appears to be leaking from the shaft the the pitman arm is bolted to.

[Brody]

HAHA....talk to Aaron. He had the same problem, tried for days to get the arm loose to rebuild the steering box, beat the hell out of it with a hammer, and it stopped leaking...

The seal on the bottom of the box is going and, aside from Aaron's tactic, you will eventually have to go through and rebuild the box in order to replace the seal. You MAY be able to do it without tearing the box down or removing the box, but you will most certainly have to remove the pitman arm in either case. If this is going to be what you do, then degrease it as much as you can and start hitting it with PB Blaster to make things easier. Do not let the box run totally out of gear oil or you will have additional problems. There should be a plate right on top of the box with a jam nut and a slotted head or Allen head bolt sticking out. This plate is what you will have to remove in order to refill the gear box with oil....

I just double checked Dave's Jeep which is at my house and if your box is anything like that one, what I described is what you are looking at. You should be able to just look down into the hole to see if you need more gear oil. In the meantime, you may want to simply go with a heavier gear oil than what Jeep suggests using to see if that helps slow the leak down.

If you do end up pulling the arm, keep in mind that the pullers that you get at Checker or Auto Zone are very likely to break. You might check with Aaron (the other one) and see if he has a quality shop one he can borrow to at least get the nut loose and the arm loose. If he does, it will have an upside down conical 'cup' on it with a slot for the sector shaft. These are pretty much bombproof. Set it in place, get some serious torque on the pitman arm, and swat the threaded arm with a BFH. Tighten, repeat. Tighten and repeat. pretty some the pitman with pop loose. When you put it back on use some anti seize on the splines. Once it is broken loose, the main drama is over and a regular pitman arm puller from Checkers will take it off again if you can't do the rebuild right away. Just don't torque the nut to the full specs until the thing is rebuilt...and keep an eye on it in the meantime..

[DETN8R]

Thanks for the reply Brody. I have a pitman arm puller from when we did the left a few years ago. I've only used it once since on a tie rod and I'm glad I had it.

I didnt know it also used gear oil on top of the power steering fluid that I've been thinking is leaking. Which it seems it is since I've been refilling it every few weeks, it goes down a little every once in a while.

[DETN8R]

I've read that a steering box from a v8 Durango will bolt right in and be stronger.
Someone on CO4x4 said that they bought the durango steering box from NAPA for about $25 with the core deposit.

[Hypoid]

I've read that a steering box from a v8 Durango will bolt right in and be stronger.
Someone on CO4x4 said that they bought the durango steering box from NAPA for about $25 with the core deposit.Ask them for the part number. You can't buy a junkyard box for $25.

Since you are on that other board, look up Old_Man (Tom Houston) and ask him if he is still rebuilding power steering gear boxes. The second post gives a little more info on what he does:

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1045041&highlight=steering

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1045040&highlight=steering

BTW, I saw a '99 Durango at the N. Denver U-Pull with the steering gear still in it. That was a week ago.

[Brody]

Ask them for the part number. You can't buy a junkyard box for $25.

I was almost going to suggest locating another new PS box, but I must have been thinking Yota junk (and those aren't cheap) so I didn't. Nice to know about the Durango. It this is indeed the case, you may want to post that up in the Jeep Tech section including what years fit.

What Mike said about a boneyard box. They aren't cheap there and I can't believe that the guy got a new one for $25, either unless it was still smoking...

[Brody]

Here is the first link I found about the Dodge PS box into a Jeep.

This is a full write up with lots of pictures:

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/writeup-dodge-durango-steering-box-1097652/

Same forum, different write up, more pictures and more information:

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/durango-steering-mod-402758/

And yet another from the same forum:

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/dodge-durango-steering-box-yj-571945/

Since there is a huge mess of pictures, information, part numbers, etc on all of these threads, I think they have the necessary information to do the deed. I am going to post this in the Jeep Make and Model links, so feel free to add to that if you find more helpful information.

[Aaron]

Here is the first link I found about the Dodge PS box into a Jeep.

This is a full write up with lots of pictures:

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/writeup-dodge-durango-steering-box-1097652/

Same forum, different write up, more pictures and more information:

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/durango-steering-mod-402758/

And yet another from the same forum:

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/dodge-durango-steering-box-yj-571945/

Since there is a huge mess of pictures, information, part numbers, etc on all of these threads, I think they have the necessary information to do the deed. I am going to post this in the Jeep Make and Model links, so feel free to add to that if you find more helpful information.

Jdawg33 and I did the Durango swap on his Jeep. It was a direct bolt on. Buy a pitman arm if you want to save yourself some headaches. I broke two pullers trying to get it off when I tried the swap the first time.

I'll let jason speak to the results but in addition to the lack of leaking, the stearing was way more responsive and tighter. All good stuff for not much dinero.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

[DETN8R]

Thanks for doing all that research for me Pete. I really appreciate that. Hopefully I'll the money in a few weeks to do the swap. I've been wanting to add a power steering fluid cooler too for awhile now, seemed like a cheap/easy upgrade.

http://www.stu-offroad.com/steering/pscooler/pscooler-1.htm

[Brody]

Never a bad idea with a cooler. More fluid, less heat, add a cooler, even better. Any generic tranny cooler from Pep Boys or a cheapo auto place is going to work. The biggest thing is space. I would go for the biggest one I can get. If you want to get fancy, Summit Racing and most of the circle car race shops carry a very sweet round aluminum cooler with some serious capacity and big cooling fins for about $60. Also the Royal Purple PS fluid runs cooler to begin with, so that is going to be a good replacement for the stock fluid, though it is a bit more expensive. O'Rielly's usually has this in stock and almost all the race places carry it.

Leary's close to you off Mississippi and Jason area carries both. Their contact stuff is in the vendor section.