Power steering pressure hose won’t go on steering box
 

I had the same issue. It needed to be perfectly lined up. I think it took me about 30 mins to get it threaded. verify the part number and compare it to the one you took off.

Yup, you've gotta get it lined up at just the right angle. Can be a PITA.

I'm about to do this job in the next day or two so following this thread. I have the new high pressure hose, but haven't started the replacement yet.

On my 89 XJ, it appears I should remove the air cleaner box to provide wrenching space on the bottom, maybe even the fan in front of the PS pump? (Both seem easy to do, no stress on those two IF appropriate.)

It also appears to replace the high pressure, the best practice is also remove the return line first, to make the wrenching possible? I can't see how I would get a wrench in there with the return line in place, but maybe from under the car? or maybe with crows feet wrench on a ratchet with extensions?

(I don't even know if it's possible to replace the high pressure without removing the return first...)

Any other suggestions/best practices to make the replacement easier?

PS: I purchased the PDF manual for my 89 XJ, it doesn't appear to have details on this operation.

I already figured out the bolts are odd, 5/8 on the top, 18 mm on the bottom. (Love the mix/match of bolt standards on this vehicle...)

Sometimes it's easier to screw it into the box before you screw it into the pump. It allows you to flex it much easier.

I just had the same problem on my tj that I'm building....thank God haven't had to do it on the xj. Anyways I ended up just buying a new line and it went right in. For the life of me the old one just wouldn't go in.

I usually measure things with a vernier before throwing away the old part..the reason being some aftermarket parts do not fit

I just finished replacing the high pressure hose on my 1989. My return line had been recently replaced sometime before I acquired the vehicle. It was in excellent shape so I reused it. (I did look at replacing it too, but decided not to after I removed and inspected it. The return was FAR newer than the high pressure... )

Overall easy job, but a few details I wasn't clear on, so I'll outline for others who haven't done this before (If any of the experience members have alternate methods, use theirs...):

** To get to the bottom connectors, I had to remove the air filter box. Doing so makes the job 10x easier. (I'm not clear how you could do it without removing that, but worth it if you do.) In my mind, that's the place to start. Get that box out of there right up front and it's all far more obvious. There may be a way to do that job from below the Jeep that I didn't try, but removing the box is easy, you simply have to pay attention to the vacuum hoses and where they all connect.

** Before and after removing the air filter box, take lots of photos with your phone. Both top and side angles. Routing the power steering hoses correctly after replacing is far easier when you have the references. You can't have too many, and some from the side AFTER the air box is removed is another big win as your doing the routing of the new hoses.

** To remove the bottom high pressure hose, you have to remove the return line first. That will give you the wrenching space needed for the high pressure fitting. (Again: It's possible it can be removed from under the Jeep, not something I even attempted.) I used an flare wrench on all fittings.

** On my 89, the top nut is 5/8, the bottom fitting is 18mm. Not sure how many years have that setup, but don't be surprised if they are different on yours, and one is SAE, the other metric. (Gotta love that type of fun...)

** I really struggled to get my bottom high pressure fitting loose. I had a 18mm flare wrench, because I could see a regular 18mm ran the risk of rounding the nut mine was so tight. NOT a good place to have something like that happen and be forced to get vice grips and monkey with that stuff.

Autozone and O'Rielly both sell an 18mm flare for around $8. WORTH IT! (I already had 5/8 flare, but my metric set only went to 17mm...).

** To break the high pressure bottom, I had the flare wrench, and a second wrench used as an "extension" to provide additional torque. I needed every inch of the extension to have enough torque to break it. It's tight, but it does work. I also put PB Blaster on those fittings the day before I did the job, and another blast as I was struggling with the high pressure fitting. Still took me far longer than I expected.

** My photos saved me when putting it back together. While it seemed easy taking them out, getting the two lines to cross/route the way they should took some double/triple checking with my photos to verify. It didn't look right to me at first when it was actually right.

*********

All and all, an easy job with flare wrenches (highly recommended), photos and some attention to details. Once the airbox is out, you have a much clearer view of the hoses, and enough wrenching room to make it all happen. The top fitting and the return lines were easy on mine, only the bottom fitting was a challenge. YMMV.

I COULD be wrong, but I think that 5/8 line is actually 16mm, which it only .006" larger. The working tolerance of wrenches is around .010". When I had to do the pump on my wife's 96 Dodge Caravan, I had to buy a 16mm-18mm flare wrench and work underneath the van on my back. The reservoirs used to rust out because of the pump's location. I had to special order that wrench because nobody carried it.

When I had to replace the high pressure line on my '99, I got a set of crows feet wrenches. IIRC, both hose nuts were metric. Something like these:
makes it much easier to get them off and back on. No idea how I'd do it without the crows feet wrenches. HF carries a set too.

Thanks for the clarification!

It's more likely I'm wrong about the 5/8 fitting on top. I had a 16mm flare wrench BEFORE buying the 18mm (which has both 18 and 16 on it) and I thought it didn't fit. If I remember, my original test for sizings were with standard wrenches, not the flares, but now too many days ago...

I'll retry that to see what fits. After I tried it the first time and I didn't think the 16mm fit, I switched to the 5/8 regular to test the sizing, then used my 5/8 flare to remove/replace, and it worked easily, I never retried the 16mm...

I'll double check, and edit my post above based on what I find. (No value pushing others down that path if there's a better way or another size is better.)

Again, I appreciate the input!

Ah, cool. I don't have a set of those yet. I was using regular wrenches at first to figure out the sizing, then switched to my flares for the actual work.

Are you saying you can do the job without removing the airbox if you use the crows feet wrenches? And/or that you can get the high pressure off without removing the return line?

Side note: The YouTube videos I found showed both lines removed when they were replacing the high pressure... with the airbox removed, I assumed that was the ticket.

I hope we can make it easier for others who do this...

Just to close the loop on this:

I rechecked and the top fitting fits fine with a 16 mm flare wrench. I'm suspect I saw someone on a video changing it, they said 5/8 and I went with it. That said, still my responsibility to get it right, and I appreciate the feedback here!

Note that both O'Reilly and AutoZone have a flare wrench for $8, it's a 18 mm and 16 mm combined (obviously one on each end). My local O'Reilly had one in stock.

Worked great, and does fit both the top and bottom as noted above, although I used the 5/8 on the pump side.

On to the next challenge in my restore project.