My "Hero" Blog

So it's been a month since my last post and I uhhhhhhhhhh haven't gotten much done. But I put in my last day at my Sacramento internship last Friday and finished my summer class today. Now I need to get the jeep together ASAP because I am moving back to pleasanton for a few weeks for work and need to be able to drive the jeep home this weekend and to work on Monday.

Soooo there has been a little progress today, and hopefully a lot more progress in the next few days.


I got the frame stiffeners all tacked up and ready to go. I accidentally tacked the drivers side outer plate on before drilling the steering box holes, so I ended up drilling them out from the inside.

Lookin good if I say so myself





I also drilled out the ends of a few frame cracks up front and they are ready to be burned in tomorrow.

Then I'll be off to steering. Gonna pop the knuckles off and drill them out to 3/4" and build a new tie rod, drag link, and new frame side track bar mount.
Then I need to drill and tap my new J20 box for hydro and install it and a new pump
Then seat mounts
Then harness mounts
Then diff/trans/tcase fluid flush
Then drive lines go back in
Then skids
Then I need to pull the exhaust away from the floorboard
Then...

Shooting for Friday completion. Gotta love deadlines.
 
Frame stiffeners look good man! You gunna make it to sierrafest this year?
 
Thanks dude! I don't think I'm going to make it to sierrafest. Not in the cards for this year.


I need some input on what to use to paint my frame and inner fender wells with when I'm done welding. I'd just like something durable. Any ideas? I'm afraid to use undercoating or bedliner stuff because it usually ends up being porous or rough in texture and you can never get the mud out of it. But if you guys have had luck with anything, please let me know! Hopefully painting it today.
 
My rockers/sliders and rails are just rustoleum black paint. Either mat black or semi gloss works well. Eventually you have to repaint it if you slide hard but I haven't had to yet and I beat it up beat it up beat it up #jay-z lol
 
Rustoleaum hammerite black
 
Hammerite black it is! Thanks for the input fellas.


Does anybody here have experience rebuilding or drilling/tapping a steering box for hydro assist? I've spent pretty much the past 7 hours messing with this J20 box I got. I tore it all apart, tapped it, and have had a heck of a time putting it back together. The issue is with the worm gear and the associated ball bearings. I worked the input shaft back and forth while dropping in the ball bearings until they were all in. But once they are all in, if I cycle the input shaft from lock to lock, some ball bearings keep falling out to the front side of the piston, limiting how much it turns to the left. Also, the input/worm gear/piston keeps binding up. Right now the worm gear is bound up to the point that I cannot move the input to the left or the right. It won't budge.

Any ideas or input? At this point I'm thinking that my new box is toast and I'll have to buy another one.
 
Jeep450r said:
Hammerite black it is! Thanks for the input fellas.


Does anybody here have experience rebuilding or drilling/tapping a steering box for hydro assist? I've spent pretty much the past 7 hours messing with this J20 box I got. I tore it all apart, tapped it, and have had a heck of a time putting it back together. The issue is with the worm gear and the associated ball bearings. I worked the input shaft back and forth while dropping in the ball bearings until they were all in. But once they are all in, if I cycle the input shaft from lock to lock, some ball bearings keep falling out to the front side of the piston, limiting how much it turns to the left. Also, the input/worm gear/piston keeps binding up. Right now the worm gear is bound up to the point that I cannot move the input to the left or the right. It won't budge.

Any ideas or input? At this point I'm thinking that my new box is toast and I'll have to buy another one.
Click to expand...


Figured it out. If any of you have this issue, it's probably because you put the bearings in wrong. If you're looking at the piston in the box with the end cap on the left and the input shaft on the right, line the flat spot on the input shaft up to be pointing up in the direction of the two factory hose ports, and then tap all of the ball bearings into the worm gear via the left-most hole (while holding the input mostly still) until they start popping out the upper right hole. Then place the remainder of the bearings in the U shaped loop and install the loop.

My issue was that I placed the bearings randomly into the two holes while rotating the input shaft/worm gear. Of the ones I placed in the upper right hole, some went to the left where they should go, and some went out to the right. The ones that went out to the right ended up dropping out of the worm gear and got stuck behind the piston, keeping it from going to full lock to the left. Of the ones I placed in the left hole, some went to the right like they were supposed to, and some went to the left down the worm gear to the non-machined portion of the worm gear and caused it to bind up and not rotate.

If you haven't done this before, it won't make any sense. But if someone finds this in a search while having the same issue, I hope it helps.
 
Here's the two crappy pics of the shenanagins that I got. I'd highly recommend using a tub like this for assembly and disassembly so you can catch everything that falls out.



Drilled and tapped





Also, for searching/tech purposes, my 85 big bore J20 box came with only 22 ball bearings. It seems that others came with 24 and sometimes 26. I'm going to run it as is.
 
It's for the 30. I'm going to run plugs in it until I decide to do hydro assist. Just wanted to get it over with while the box was out. I may never even end up doing assist with this setup because the new box will probably be plenty for me but atleast I'm ready for down the road.
 
It's just gonna be a lifetime warranty autozone pump. I was going to drill out the fitting on the pump but I haven't had any time to do research on that. Any recommendations? If it's quick enough I'll just crank it out on the drill press before I install it.
 
oooo ok. I was going to drill out mine but I didnt have enough time to actually get the fitting off :(

http://westtexasoffroad.homestead.com/powersteering.html
That is the link that I was going off of. I got a lot of recommendations to drill it out 1/32 larger, and that 1/16 larger would be a crazy amount of flow.
 
I ruined 2 boxes tapping them. the tap jobs I did where great, but I broke a little nub on a j20 box that ruined the box, and somehow destroyed the pitman shaft on the other while removing it. No idea how. anyway, good luck kevin.

the tapping is the easy part. reassembly sucks.
 
About the pump, I was doing some research and came across this: http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=946090
They are using 2001 4.7L Grand Cherokee PS pumps in our XJs. They have more pressure and higher flow due to the fact that the PS pump also pumped fluid for a hydraulic cooling fan. The OP of that thread said you just have to swap out the high pressure fitting and plug the extra low pressure return line. This setup might be something to consider.
 
XJ_Rudolph said:
About the pump, I was doing some research and came across this: http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=946090
They are using 2001 4.7L Grand Cherokee PS pumps in our XJs. They have more pressure and higher flow due to the fact that the PS pump also pumped fluid for a hydraulic cooling fan. The OP of that thread said you just have to swap out the high pressure fitting and plug the extra low pressure return line. This setup might be something to consider.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have one sitting in my garage. It looks exactly the same once the reservoir is off. You can probably just buy a bare pump and swap the reservoir.

I just installed one on my GFs 2001 4.7 WJ.
 
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