BoulderXJ

This isn't a super detailed writeup, since lots of folks have done good write ups on what it takes to swap out a steering gear, but I did want to give a quick summary of my experience.

My steering gear was shot, lots of play at the wheel, no movement in the pitman arm. I decided to replace it with a PSC SG621M Xtreme Duty steering gear. While I was at it I went ahead and replaced the wimpy spacer with a C Rok inner frame plate.

PSC Xtreme Duty SG621M:
http://www.pscmotorsports.com/-SG621...ring-Gear.html

C-Rok Inner Frame Plate:
http://www.c-rok.com/sb.html

BTW - 2001 XJ running 4.5" lift on 32's.

A couple of things I encountered.

First, one of the hydraulic lines was really difficult to disconnect from the steering gear. I was using a standard open ended wrench, and the access is crummy. The nut is a fairly soft material and I was worried that I was going to round it off. I ended up disconnecting at the pump and taking the gear box out with one hose still attached. I put the gear in my vise and was able to remove the hose really easily. Sometimes it really helps to have better access.

The next thing that surprised me was that the PSC Xtreme duty gear is bigger than the standard gear box, it uses a larger piston. This means that it needs spacers to fit. I ended up stacking 5 washers under each mounting point to space it over far enough that the body doesn't hit the C Rok inner frame plate. This isn't just an issue using the aftermarket frame plate, you would have this issue using the stock spacer too. I just used regular 3/8" washers, which appear to be about .085" thick, so my spacer in total was .425" thick. (I know that I used 5 washers, and I'm pretty sure that the .085" thick is correct) When installing all the washers are bound to fall off as you get the gear lined up wit the bolts. In order to avoid playing 52 card pickup, you might want to put a piece of tape around the outside diamter of the 5 washer stack to keep them all together, it helps a bunch. The bolts were still long enough to get at least 5 threads engaged, but a slightly longer bolt might be better. I don't recall the exact length, maybe 4.5" would be about right, but double check that. The bolts are 3/8-16. Because the steering gear is spaced over the steering wheel is misaligned, adjust the collar on the center link to fix that.

Reading the instructions for the C Rok inner plate I thought that I'd have to do a lot of work to get the crush sleeves installed. It turned out that the bolt holes were big enough on two of the mounts for the crush washers to slide right in. The lower right mount (facing the wheel well from the outside) did need to be slightly enlarged, but it was slight, I did it with a round circular file and it only took a few minutes.

The end result - fantastic. The steering is so much better, all the slop is gone and the steering is smooth and requires only a light touch.