Hydro Assist on 99xj

I would like to say that with a day you can do this! me and a friend just completed this task and i can not believe i did not do this earlier! I have always run 35'd and now have 37's and the stock power steering system was hurting - even driving to the grocery store! To be honest with all the write ups out there the proceedure was that bad at all. Tapping the box was very straight forward and with a steady hand we drilled and tapped for 2 - 1/4 npt to an fittings. One hole on my factory box was very shallow where as the other was 2 or 3x the depth. Be careful not to overdrill! The box is made of a soft metal and a good bit can easily keep going! We drilled - stopped - drilled and stopped just to be on the safe side. We followed a write up on pirate and for reference some of the write ups here on naxja and they were spot on. After tapping and reinstalling stock the lines and the new hydro lines, we installed a small hayden cooler in line with the return line from the power steering pump. After all of the lines were snug we bolted up the ram and started adding fluid. With the ram, a psc 7-8 stroke ram single sided and the new lines and cooler all and all we added after "burping" 2 quarts of fluid! It took about 1.5 to get full and then a lot of lock to lock turn to cycle the ram to get all the air out. After getting the ram to move like it should we topped it off and mocked up a solid mounting place. i am running WJ knuckles and a 1.5 .250 tube steering set up with heims. We found that on top of the tie rod with a ballistic tube clamp would work for the tie rod end and would keep the ram out of the way of trail debris while for the axle end we used a nice blank spot off of the JKS OTA mount. PSC includes tabs and hardware so we mounted the clamp loose so we can adjust as needed and tacked the tabs on the axle side. A little more playing around and the rams was perfectly centered in the steering. Also, i have a gen right pulley on the way that is vented and machined to make the steering a little more repsonsive at lower rpms and also should keep the pump cooler. Granted, i have not driven an xj with hydro assist before or an xj with aftermarket pumps or boxes but man does it turn so effortlessly! All bumps on road are absorbed and at a stand still my 37 mtr's turn super easy compared to the stock set up where it was a struggle. On road manners really compare to driving a car. I also changed out my ball joints before we atarted on the hydro assist. They were toasted (103k on stock ones) and this contributed to making the front end feel much more solid and responsive.

Anyways, this is a totally DIY mod and just wanted to add my 2 cents to the already great resources out there. here is my parts list and some pics. I will answer any other q's ya have! Oh, and i did not rebuild the box. We used multiple magnets to get all the shavings out and flushed the box by moving the pitman arm back and forth multiple times adding fluid as needed... no problems yet but i would think that rebuilding the box would be much more beneficial bc at that time you can adjust the internals for more flow if needed... mine feels great with the stock set up!

parts:
- psc ram, single sided heims one each end, 1/4 mounting tabs (double shear at both ends), bolts and nuts
- new power steering fluid (2 qts - syn reccomended)
- 2 hydro lines (i think mine are 20 something inches)
- appropriate hydro fittings - i had to get some npt to an adapters but my local hydro store had all i needed
- liquid teflon for sealing hydro fittings
- 1/4 npt tap - lowes had one for 10 bux
- drill bit for 1/4 npt tap - we used a small one to find the internal line and then stepped it up once and then a third time for the proper size
- welder! we used a lincoln 220 buzz box for the 1/4 inch parts
- ballistic fab tube clamp 1.5 ID - 3 bolts per side - an awesome piece
- hayden small tranny cooler - mounted in front of ac/ rad condenser
- gen right power steering pulley
- oil catcher pan - we had a lot of fluid drip and drain all over the place while mocking up
- normal hand tools, etc
- multiple shock rags
- i think that is all - will add more if applicable

pics

bad cell phone pics - still need to paint some more











better pics to come!

looks awesome :thumbup: got any guess as to a total cost of everything??

yeah more than budgeted for 350 for all - pulley was 90... could do it for less though

Usually ppl have the ram the other way around. Is there a reason why you did this?
I would think it might cause unnecessary movement in the hydro lines. But I guess if the lines are out of the way of rubbing on things, you will not have a problem.

BTW

With the ram disconnected, did it only move when the steering wheel moved? Or did it continue to cycle/move (even if it was slow) when the steering wheel stopped part way (not at full lock).


Great work! atriot:

with it disconnected the ram did not move much at all - little bit of gas and working out all the air then it would move according/ with the turning of the wheel but very slowly

we crossed up the return lines a couple of times and really did not think about the ram positioning - i could rotate the ram around and flip flop lines... any disadvantages to the way it is mounted? i have only driven it for 10 minutes! all of the lines look out of the way... they only come into contact with some of the oil pan which i am afraid might lead to some bubbling of the fluid so i am going to wrap them with either header wrap or heat shield material to keep them insulated from the oil pan heat which gets pretty dang hot

oh and i have not swapped pulleys yet so I think the new pulley will make the hydro assist more responsive - i still think it works great but it might be slightly slow with stock equipment

Looks awesome murph i bet it will be awesome on the trails to man.

i hope so - for now all it see's is street! My steering used to whine all the time under stress - hopefully this will cure it