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Hi guys, I have a 2000 Cherokee and I am looking for some advice. This spring I installed a JCR Offroad steering box spacer after my factory one broke. Today I was pulling out of my parking lot, I heard a loud pop and no steering. I crawl under the jeep to find this. Any advice on how to get these broken bolts off? Do you this JCR would warranty these bolts and replace them? Thank you!
The part of the bolt you are holding looks like the washer is bent like the bolt was loose . just soak them with a oil and turn them out they should unscrew . If the bolts broke why would you want to put the same bolts back in .
It's likely JCR won't, and in reality the time it would take to get new bolts, you'd be several steps ahead just buying new ones for a few bucks.
It looks like you have a mix of OEM and Gr8 in there?
The broken piece might be a little bit of a pain to get out, but shouldn't be too bad. I have known of a few people to run slightly longer bolts, with stover nuts on the back to make sure the bolts can't walk out.
Yea, I got in touch with JCR offroad, and they said no refund but they will send me new bolts. Part of me is wondering whether these are actually grade 8 bolts, or just cheap Chinese bolts. They said it was the first time they had head of this happening, and to check my front end and power steering. I've been driving it with the new spacer for probably 3 months, and all of a sudden it breaks in a every day driving scenario? Something isn't adding up. Luckily I found a used one for $45, so the plan is to pick it up and swap them out to avoid messing with the broken bolts.
The failure of the washer is indicative that the bolts were not under correct preload and thus their fatigue life was greatly reduced. IE, as the washer deformed over time it allowed the bolts to become loose enough to no longer be stretched, but as likely the threads in the actual steering box were not perfect it prevented the bolts from actually backing out.
A bolt with no preload/pretension is a soon to fail bolt, assuming it is not massively oversized for its application. Power steering box bolts on XJs are not in any way oversized for their application, but rather barely adequate for everything beyond stock applications.
Could that be from the bolts being too tight? I didn’t have a torque wrench on hand, but I do remember giving them a solid grunt and a half. Or would it be from the bolts possibly loosening/working loose and then snapping due to bad preload
IDK Why, but my steering box bolts seem to loosen up over the course of 10k miles or so, but I don't put any loctite on those because I am lazy and don't want to have to struggle to remove the steering gear
I usually do a monthly "preflight" which involves checking the steering box bolts, eyeballing the front steering castle nuts/cotter pins on the tie-rods, checking the driveshaft bolts, and rear leaf spring bolts.
No clue why those broke though. I would be trying to source some American made and heat-treated Grade 8 bolts from Fastenal or something.
Thanks for the heads up I will check them monthly. Got the old box pulled today, ended up cracking the low pressure p.s line trying to pull it off the reservoir. Gonna swap boxes and reservoir tomorrow and get her all buttoned up
05-22-2018, 07:36 PM
JCR steering box bolts broke
