Weird power steering problem

Hey all,

I have a 93 4.0 Wrangler that has had a power steering problem for a while. Sometimes it would work and then out of the blue it stops working. Its never actually stopped working while I'm driving, only after I turn off the car and restart. I checked this forum and it seems like the culprit was the steering pump. So i went ahead and got a rebuilt pump and installed it. The "new" pump worked great but I still felt a very light tight spot. Today after playing some golf I started up the Jeep to go home, and I was blessed with manual steering again. I checked the fluid level and belt, but everything is fine. No leaks or anything. Could it be the steering box itself that may be bad? The jeep does have almost 200K miles on it. Or am I just really unlucky and became the recipient of a bad rebuilt pump?

That reminds me, has anyone been successful in pulling the old steering pump pulley off? I tried a pulley puller, a press, and torch but that sucker wouldn't come off so I ended up buying a new pulley.

I'd like to know if theres anyway to check if its the steering box itself before I go ahead and try another pump, cause I'll probably need another $30 pulley for another new pump since its impossible to get the old new one off.

My ride has a 3.5" BDS lift kit and 32" tires, with the stock pitman arm (the dropped pitman arm would have made the track bar less parallel with the drag link so I never installed it).

Thanks for listening...this forum is like the encyclopedia for jeeps. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Reply to
mslug
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Reply to
L.W.(ßill)

You could easily be describing a steering damper shock gone bad or a front axle u-joint gone bad.

If you jack up the front and turn the wheel to each side and hand spin them, you will see if a u-joint is binding.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

mslug wrote:

Reply to
Mike Romain

Bill, Regarding the clutches operating the valves, is that in the steering box or steering pump? If its the steering box, will I have to take it off the jeep to relieve the oil pressure.

For some reason the old pulley would just not budge no matter how much pressure we pushed/pulled on it. It actually warped, but not a mm of movement off the shaft. Installing a new one was fairly easy since the pump came with a simple pressing tool.

Thanks

Reply to
mslug

If I take off the steering damper how can I test it to see whether it is damaged or not?

Also, how should the steering feel if everything was fine except for the steering pump? Should the steering wheel turn fluidly, but just a lot harder to turn? Because right now the wheel is harder to turn only in certain spots which does sound like a bind somewhere.

Finally, whats the cause of "loose" steering? The wheel turns a few inches either direction before the actual tires turn.

Thanks

Reply to
mslug

This is exactly what was happening on my Jeep a while ago, when we found that both of the axle u-joints were frozen solid. They would hold my buddy who weighs over 250lb's with out bending. It was amazing that the power steering was even able to move them. It was a weird problem for us to diagnose because it would only happen periodically and then I could not reproduce it when I had time to look at it.

Reply to
aGraham

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