beefmobile

Hey guys, i recently made a trip about an hour and a half north of where i live and on the way back, my power steering developed one hell of a leak. It literally dumped all fluid. Most of the trip was straight highway, so i didn't notice until i pulled over for gas. Power steering was completely gone.

I had to make it home, as there wasn't much civilization where i was. By the time i got home and was pulling into my house, the power steering sounded like a box of marbles rattling around. I have a feeling it is totally roasted. If i add fluid, it will be dry within a minute. I have been too busy lately to look at it and just yesterday i looked it over and i can see actual constant dripping when i add fluid coming from behind and under the pulley. I can't find any leaky lines or particularly feel any cracks..........what the heck?? Maybe it's a busted O-ring...but again, i think i may have ruined the entire pump....

I doubt any 'stop leak' will have any effect at all on such a bad leak. I found out that Autozone has re-manned units between $46-66...but there are two different pumps offered...why? what's the difference? They both say they fit my "1995 Jeep Cherokee 4WD 4.0L MFI 6cyl"...........the only thing i can think of is one comes with the bottle and the other doesn't. The part numbers are: 6324 and 6395.

My next question is swapping out the PS easy? As in, do i need a pulley puller or are there any specialty tools or techniques to it?

Thanks guys....

radio flyer

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/member...p-replacement/



Do it yourself, it's easy and save your money by buying the pump without the reservoir.

beefmobile

Well ya i plan on doing it myself. I hope it's not the reservoir that's cracked. Thanks for the link. It's kind of hard to determine what's going on from pic to pic.....could you explain what i should expect, please? i may be doing this today..

radio flyer

Sorry, the pics aren't meant to be a step by step and only cover R&R of the pulley and reservoir along with basic re-installation. The job is really quite easy with the R&R of the pulley being the tough part. A puller can be borrowed/rented from most part stores.

99 Purple XJ

Mine did the same thing after wheeling i go to start the jeep in the mornig for school sounded like a diesel look at the engine it was the pump pulley wobbling like crazy

beefmobile

So I need a puller??

radio flyer

You can buy the entire pump as a unit, but that gets expensive. The pulley and reservoir can be moved to a new pump without the extra expense of having to purchase all new pieces. Most parts stores offer loaner tools, and yes you will need a power steering pump puller to remove the pulley. A new pump usually comes with the tool to re-install the pulley.

beefmobile

Ok so I got the new pump on (what a chore) and right after I finished and started it up, it started WHINING very very badly. Shut it off and looked in the reservoir and it was white-ish with a gazillion bubbles in it, but the fluid level was lower. So, I added a little, started it up again, then did that several more times. Then I drove it around the parking lot and it was LOUD. I put it in neutral and put it at 2k RPM and turned the wheel all the way to the left and right. Then drove it around a little more. After about 5-10 mins of driving, the whining was barely noticeable. Was all that normal? Did the fluid just need to make it's way to all the right places?

hankthetank

Probly could have primed it first...dunno.

beefmobile

well one thing i did notice though is that when i pulled the reservoir, there was no O-ring on it. Or, at least not that i noticed before it might have fallen off. Could it have disintegrated and caused my catastrophic leak? That sucks because even after i added fluid to the old one (for the short amount of time it held the fluid) it sounded so bad that there was no way that it could be revived.......

radio flyer

You needed to prime the system before starting the engine as i described in my pics. Not to worry, the way that you did it only caused it to take longer to get air out of the system.



Reinstall all of your other goodies-Fill the reservoir-Manually bleed the system BEFORE you start the engine-top off the reservoir-Manually bleed the system again-Check fluid level-
You should be good to go!!!
Check the fluid level again after you test drive your beast (Added by radio flyer on 11-06-2010 02:31 PM)

You manually bleed the system by turning the steering wheel to full stop in both directions a couple times, and is easier to do with both front wheels off of the ground.

beefmobile

ohhh......whoops


So have i ruined the pump now? it seems fine. I drove it to work and it ran great. Doesn't make any noise and power steering is good...

radio flyer

You should be ok! Like i said-Not to worry, the way that you did it only caused it to take longer to get air out of the system. As long as the pump isn't noisy it should be OK