Power steering pump Higher volume?? Where? What?

Well looking in to a higher volume and better then stock quality pump for my 1990 XJ. Need more volume.

I found Poly has one for 357$ with the res. and fittings etc. Its just a PSC SP-1405 pump kit.

What else have others ran? Where did you get it and how much? Need it sooner then later and finially have the $ for one.

Help with what ya know.

I just installed a PSC pump, gearbox and pulley along with a cooler. It turns so easy you can actually spin the wheel. It feels a little light on the freeway, but off-road its awesome.

well I have a hydro assist ram and the box is brand new and drilled and tapped. It was fine untill calico about 4 months ago and it sounded like the alt or PS pump was freezing on occation. Not to mention it was steering great at TDS only about a month prior, and towards the end of Calico it was not.

So I got a new replacment alt and was going to do the PS pump also while I was up there. I have been looking and also found a PSC pump in the OE fashion but the larger 1400 series for 185$. uses teh stock resevoir style setup. thinking of going that way. But looking for any words of wisdom here first.

I would do the pump, use some real good fluid like the redline or royal purple. Do you have a cooler?

yeah have a hayden finned style in front of the rad that is about 16x10 and was a larger pep boys model

I run a replacement pump from autozone with a b&m cooler. Works great for my 31's on and off road.

ok well I am on 39.5" IROKS, forgot to mention that I guess lol..

I need more volume for the hydro assist ram and the box.

If everything is in good shape, you should be fine with the upgraded pump using the stock reservoir, with the big cooler you have. What size is your ram? However, it is nice to have the larger reservoir to increase the fluid volume some and help with the cooling. Depends on if you have the $$ for just the pump, or the whole deal.

It's good to have a filter in the system, it protects the rest of the parts if one of them goes south. Metal shavings can get in the system from a worn part, then you replace the part but the system is already contaminated so the new part might not last very long, and you end up chasing a frustrating problem. Too many of us have been down that road. I have a real nice inline filter with slip fittings that I put in the return line between the cooler and the reservoir, it came from Lee Mfg. PSC makes a reservoir that has a filter on the bottom.

Also, I highly recommend the 4.5" pump pulley from PSC. It makes a good difference on low speed responsiveness. Regular PS fluid should get the job done, but I use Redline synthetic. I had enough problems with this system before I got the bugs worked out, and I work it hard enough, that I'm doing everything I can to make sure it works properly. I have a Tommy Lee small bore steering gear, Tommy Lee seperate reservoir and filter and high performance pump, a PSC 4.5" pulley, a PSC 1 5/8" ram, and a cooler. It works perfectly with 40's, plenty of both power and speed.

well after calling PSC, they recommended thier SP-1480K kit. its a different style pump I take it then what I have now. He said that its ready for full hydro if I go that way ever adn is thier best pump out there so far. he said that with just a higher volume pump it will have slightly more PSI, but that with what I was discribing to him, that i will burn out his 1400 series pump sooner then later also. That the PSI demand is too much for that style pump, and that I need to spend 500$ lol..

So who has the best prices on PSC stuff??

pretty sure a pump/reservoir from a 350 will work...its is a higher capacity reservoir.

I'm running the SP-1210XK kit, so far it's been working great. Steering is extremely smooth with very little effort, even at low speeds and the stock pulley. Everything stays completely silent and consistent even after working it hard for long continuous stretches...

new pump in place:



I changed out this fitting from the old pump for it to work with the stock lines:



and made a little stand to hold the new reservoir:



I'm running a stock drilled/tapped steering box with a 1.5" x 8" surplus center ram. I ran it with a new stock pump and reservoir for about a year, with a filter and small cooler, and by last April the reservoir was leaking from where it meets the pump, and the pump was pretty well shot (noisy and a lot of lag). I swapped the PSC stuff in three months ago and it's been awesome ever since...there's nothing I'd change.

I ordered it direct from PSC, had it within a few days. $335 plus shipping.

vetteboy said:

I'm running a stock drilled/tapped steering box

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What does that mean??

AboveNBeyond said:

What does that mean??

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it means he took the stock box, drilled & tapped it so that he can use a hyd. ram to assist in steering.

search "ram assist"
or "steering box mod"
something along those lines will give you plenty of reading material.

ROBERTK said:

well after calling PSC, they recommended thier SP-1480K kit. its a different style pump I take it then what I have now. He said that its ready for full hydro if I go that way ever adn is thier best pump out there so far. he said that with just a higher volume pump it will have slightly more PSI, but that with what I was discribing to him, that i will burn out his 1400 series pump sooner then later also. That the PSI demand is too much for that style pump, and that I need to spend 500$ lol..

So who has the best prices on PSC stuff??

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He tries to bump everyone to the bigger pump. Less chance of you having a problem and getting back to him with it. It's a good way to go, depends on how much you want to spend. The TC (stock style) pump is a very good pump, it can be made to pump very high pressure, but it can have durability issues. If everything in the system stays perfect, you could run one for a long time. In my XJ, I have a Tommy Lee box and ram, and I've broken the box three times (no fault of Lee), no filter and the stock reservoir. I've been running the same AGR stock style TC pump for about 10 years and it's never, ever given me any problems.

In the buggy, there were internal problems with the size of some fittings and with the ram, and before it got resolved it went through 2 stock pumps and a PSC pump. The problem got fixed, I replaced EVERYTHING in the system (works fantastic, BTW), and got a Tommy Lee very high performance TC pump with remote reservoir and filter. I blew a high pressure line from it rubbing on the steering shaft, moved the rig about 15 feet to clear an obstacle then we pushed it out of the way so we didn't run the motor and pump, and it still hurt my Lee modified TC pump. I'm still running that pump, but when the temps warm up it can start to whine and I can loose a little pressure. I have another one sitting in the box waiting to go in.

Moral of all this is you might get along just fine with a good TC pump, many people do. But, you might not. It's your money.

Goatman said:

Moral of all this is you might get along just fine with a good TC pump, many people do. But, you might not. It's your money.

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Yep. The one in my pictures above is the TC pump.

We had a guy this weekend crack a hydro fitting off his ram...and he had full hydro steering. His entire steering ability promptly dumped out on the rocks. Personally, I'm happy enough with my hydro assist setup that I'd consider running a true steering box on a buggy...it's about 90% as effortless as the guys I run with that have full hydro, and about 100% more redundant as far as a backup plan.

Yep, now that I have it working right, I love the hydro assist steering on the buggy. It's powerful, quick, and precise........what more could you ask for?

Oh yeah, not having to work with clearance for the steering links, but I still love my assist steering.