Will it fit a wj?

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f51/du...houghts-84331/

and for what it's worth, I replaced my steering gear box with a duralast rebuilt unit from auto zone (not the box in the photo below). 6 months later I replaced it again under warranty because the freeplay at the steering wheel was excessive. This 2nd unit needed to be adjusted after installation 1/4 turn (allen screw and nut, center of the 4 bolt heads). New unit seems ok after a years use.

Are the wj steering boxes no good?

From what i have read and seen, the side to side play is a little normal on the bottom sector shaft bearing , but mine seemed to be excessive, so i just replaced the P/S box, and that took care 90% of my free play in my steering wheel.

As far as the steering wheel not returning to center, usually the older the P/S box gets, the easier it is to turn the wheel, and the easier it returns to center.
You might have be having problems with the box inside with the worm gear, or the bearings inside of the box that moves the main piston back and forth inside of the gear box. The steering wheel is hooked up to a shaft that goes down to the input shaft, When you turn the steering wheel, you are turning the worm gear. On the worm gear is about 30 bearings on the outside of the worm gear that actually pushes the main piston back and forth inside of the P/S box. The worm gear and the ball bearings are inside of the main piston. Its kind of hard to explain over the computer..

Anyway, i was out in Moab doing some wheeling in my 65 L.C. which I also installed a Saginaw box in, and my steering box locked up for a second on me going down the main road in town, so i forced the steering wheel to turn before i had a head on with the other car coming the other direction. The P/S box did free up, but i could feel some grinding in the box after i forced it to turn, so i drove the L.C. back to main camp, and removed the P/S box and tore it apart on the park bench Turns out one of the ball bearings broke or wore out, and the metal shavings from it started to take the rest of the other ball bearings out, can you say chain reaction Lucky for me the local Moab auto parts store had me another P/S box the next day. Of course i did not have my drill and taps to set the box up for my rock ram in Moab, but i made it thru the rest of the week with some good wheeling.

The P/S boxes are not that hard to work on, i have set up or drilled and tapped countless Saginaw, Ford and Toyota boxes up for my buddies and there rock rams..

Another thing that could be causing your steering wheel to not re turn to center correctly is a bad front end alignment, the shaft that goes down to the P/S box rubbing on something or binding up.