2000 Jeep XJ Pensacola, FL

[Justin Lee]

Hello community!

I recently purchased this 2000 Jeep XJ with 100,000 miles on it. It has the 4.0 inline 6 and drives...interestingly... with the 35-inch mud tires. This isn't my first off-road-oriented vehicle, but it is the first project that goes this deep.

Recently, we had a hard freeze and record-breaking snow in Pensacola. At this time, the steering gearbox started leaking power steering fluid pretty badly. I am interested in changing the entire gear box instead of a rebuild. Do you guys have any advice?

Justin

 

[ThundahBeagle]

Had a WJ, same engine and a lot of other parts. I think these came with Saginaws stock. Not and Allen screw on top of steering box. Loosen nut. If steering it tight, loosen allen screw a bit and then re-tighten nut. Check those out as they c ou old also be source of your leaks. You may not need to change it out.

If the seals are gone or its cracked or whatever, yeah, just replace it. I remember it being a little tough to find some years ago though that may have changed

 

[Offroadnutz]

Nice Jeep. Looks like it has quite a bit of lift on it. How” interestingly” does it drive?

 

[Justin Lee]

Had a WJ, same engine and a lot of other parts. I think these came with Saginaws stock. Not and Allen screw on top of steering box. Loosen nut. If steering it tight, loosen allen screw a bit and then re-tighten nut. Check those out as they c ou old also be source of your leaks. You may not need to change it out.

If the seals are gone or its cracked or whatever, yeah, just replace it. I remember it being a little tough to find some years ago though that may have changed

Thank you for that information. I’ve read a lot of replacing with remans, but I’m going to disregard and try it anyways.

 

[Justin Lee]

Nice Jeep. Looks like it has quite a bit of lift on it. How” interestingly” does it drive?

Right now it definitely has some left/right creep. I’ve had mud tires on my Z71 and this is more than I’m used to. I hope after the steering gear box is replaced it will help some. I’ll post some pictures tomorrow.

 

[MrWilsonWJ]

Check your caster angle. With that much lift it's easy to end up with too little caster, that will make it want to wander and feel twitchy. I don't exactly know what it's supposed to be for an XJ but guessing somewhere around 4-8 degrees. If you have adjustable control arms it's an easy adjustment to make you just have to find the happy medium between caster angle and pinion angle. Does it have a double cardan front driveline? If not they might have adjusted the CA's for pinion angle to get rid of driveline vibration and messed up the caster. As for the leak, clean it up real good so you're certain where the leak is coming from. Could be a bad hose or fitting. You can get seal kits to rebuild them, but if loose from the big tires and wheeling then you might as well change the whole thing.

 

[Offroadnutz]

There is a lot of good information to be found at cherokeeforums.com