Steering Gear Box

So I have been tooling around some older posts regarding steering gear boxes. Unfortunately I was driving on the highway behind a stupid smelly silverado and it completely disintegrated on the road in front of me ugh... chevy. The contents of the truck and the actual truck itself just all fell apart. I could not move out of the way due to a semi I was passing on the right. Long story short now my steering gear box leaks from where the linkage for the steering wheel is. Not even sure how since the pitman arm is untouched I see from other posts that auto stores sell crap steering gear boxes which is no surprise. I did one for my 99 in 2007 that has been fine but I cant remember where I bought it. Anyone know of a good place to get these?

Just order a new steering shaft seal from RockAuto.com and replace it. The adjustment on that is not very critical. It is critical if you mess with the worm gear lash.

Well the Jeep is old and has 186k on the body. Considering I likely wont retire it until 6 or 700k it might not hurt to put a new one with less play in and use that opportunity to add that brace. However if it is a very expensive part I will definitely go with that suggestion

So I found out I had bought a brand new steering gear box from one of the auto stores right before the economy crash years ago. It has been over 100k since I put that in and still working great. Everything from food to car parts is made poorly these days so maybe the quality of a brand new one from an auto store is still a bad idea? I definitely would prefer to replace the entire unit

Fix the seal. My 1999 has +267,000 miles on the original steering box and it is fine.

Rather than buy any crappy rebuilt junk with a "Lifetime Warranty", I would find a used original Jeep steering box and it will likely be fine also.

Find a good ZJ box. You'll like it.

Does the zj box bolt in as if it is meant for the xj? I am not looking to modify the holes. This is my daily so I have to prioritize what gets special mods. Unless there is a good benefit to a zj box I definitely will take the advice here and just fix the seal. I have driven zjs but not long enough to notice if they are any easier to keep in the lane. Just noticed it has a lower resistance. Not a bad thing

If nothing else is wrong with the box and only the seal is leaking definitely just replace the seal. Buying a rebuilt and getting one that is nice and tight with no slop is a crap shoot.

ZJ box has a 12:1 ratio vs the XJ box at 14:1


IIRC