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Renix steering gear box repair options

Thanks, I went back to AZ,found out I bought a box for one of my rigs in 2005 (only had the 85 2.2 L-diesel and the 87 4.0 Renix Wagoneer). Their system says I bought it in 2005 for the 87, not long after I bought the 87. Then in 2011, I got warranty swap, that I recall installing ( but I had a friend do the 2005 year install, that I do not recall). So I got 6 years out of each one, and this time I inspected the entire unit before I swapped it (free warranty again), and took great pains to properly install it. The last one leaked almost imediately, but stop leak got me by for 6 years. PWR STR pump is already pretty new with a filter, and the old box still worked, just had the side to side play in the output shaft, so I got to it early, and I had just replaced everything else in the steering and suspension (to solve sever death wobble), except the ball joints, and 3 control arms that were all still good. I will post back up here later after 6-12 months and report back.

Did not try to figure out if the old one or new one was a Renix double seal box. Forgot too, after standing in a damn line for 45 forking minutes, while all but 2 people were on a damn pizza break :gonnablow. Even worse putting up with that BS when your fighting foot pain from RA.
Old man thanks for the feed back. I decided is Cardone is doing all the rebuilds, might as well get a free warranty I can inspect before I take it home and install it, and no freight or core charges.

So far this one is rock solid, leak free, works perfectly, and looks like I scored a good one this time.

Telling someone is hard. The difference is in how far down inside the snout of the box the snap ring resides. The old boxes are in my opinion far superior. They have the snap ring closer to the edge (not as far down inside). Most newer boxes had a large rubber plug like dirt seal, whereas the older boxes didn't. Reman's don't normally come with the dust plug/seal.
 
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For what it is worth. O'reilly has switched suppliers to BBB, from cardone. Because of all the failures.
Not to say that one would not still end up with a cardone unit that has been sitting on the shelf, but possible to get something better.
One can walk in and special order a Lares box from O'reilly for less than 'house brand box'
I recently picked mine up. Have not installed it yet though.
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Hummmmmm. Interesting. Going through old parts receipts last weekend I found I bought one of my steering gears from O’Reilly (circa 2003), it was a A1 cardon which was as worn out as the core I turned in, not knowing these rebuilds were trash I spent this a lot of time replacing everything else associated with steering .

I was thinking about calling them to see if they could find our warranty by phone # since the original receipt I think was used for a rebate and returning the core, (found all the details written on another receipt except for the invoice #)


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The Cardone pump I put in a few months ago was much noisier than the original. Now its really screaming loud on cold starts for the first few minutes. Time to call rock auto and see if I can cross ship a new one.
 
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Sorry to hear that. The last AZ one I installed is working great so far. No leaks at all. All good so far. This time I was super careful about bleeding air out of it, something I never done in 45 years, and it took an hour to get every last air bubble out of the gear box this time. Zero noise from the system :cheers:. The air bleeding process on these PS systems is way more sensitive than I ever realized.

The Cardone pump I put in a few months ago was much noisier than the original. Now its really screaming loud on cold starts for the first few minutes. Time to call rock auto and see if I can cross ship a new one.
 
Hummmmmm. Interesting. Going through old parts receipts last weekend I found I bought one of my steering gears from O’Reilly (circa 2003), it was a A1 cardon which was as worn out as the core I turned in, not knowing these rebuilds were trash I spent this a lot of time replacing everything else associated with steering .

I was thinking about calling them to see if they could find our warranty by phone # since the original receipt I think was used for a rebate and returning the core, (found all the details written on another receipt except for the invoice #)


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In theory, if you have the part number, approx. date of purchase, and your name in the system, someone should be able to find it.
 
This time I was super careful about bleeding air out of it, something I never done in 45 years, and it took an hour to get every last air bubble out of the gear box this time. Zero noise from the system :cheers:. The air bleeding process on these PS systems is way more sensitive than I ever realized.

I didn't do anything special for bleeding it. Anything I should try before yanking the pump out?
 
The instructions that came with the Rebuilt AZ said to use a vacuum pump and cap hose-tool assy on the PWR STR Pump cap to suck air out with a vacuum after the first steps.....? :scared:

I spent about 60 minutes with the tires off the ground turning the Steering wheel stop to stop as the first step (I did not do the vacuum pump step 2). Periodically added some fluid as needed and then put the cap back on to avoid fluid being thrown out. I learned the hard last year with a ford that turning the engine on and off, can make it throw fluid every where when the pump stops turning.....

Turned on the engine for about 5 seconds about once every 10 minutes....

I had days of hell degassing 96 Ford Taurus last year and learned some tricks and horror stories there. Never got the hard steering solved, finally traded it in for a jeep. Also I learned that not getting all the air out can quickly damage a new pump to where it is noisy all the time till it dies. There is a lot more air in our gear boxes than I thought!!! Also the fluid is thick enough that it takes time for foam to degas!!!! So the process takes time and great patience. As it is with most Jeep repairs, LOL.


I didn't do anything special for bleeding it. Anything I should try before yanking the pump out?
 
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