So after leaving the car wash today I noticed it felt like I had no power steering. Like all of a sudden, nothing. I got out to look underneath and sure enough there's steering fluid dripping from the steering box area. I drove it the rest of the mile home so I could inspect it. A week ago I changed the belt that drives the power steering. It started squealing after taking it out on a light trail and generally didn't look super healthy so I decided to change it. The belt felt a little looser than the others but not enough that it seemed like it might be slipping. I decided to tighten it up anyway. After doing that I topped off the steering fluid and fired her up. With the truck still in park I started to turn the wheel a little to the left and felt the power steering work for a split second and then nothing. Went to look underneath and sure enough steering fluid EVERYWHERE. It was dripping down the steering box like crazy. The area around the pump and top of the steering box looked fine. From underneath it looked like it was coming out between the steering box and where the link comes out the bottom where the pitman arm attaches. I felt around the back of the box to make sure it wasn't leaking somewhere behind it and it wasn't. Clearly the fluid is gushing out the steering box where that link meets the outside housing of the box.

So, is there any reason to believe it's NOT the steering box that's the root of my issue? I don't think the pitman arm is screwed on as far as it was originally but I cranked it on there as hard as I could and it's definitely on there tight.

This steering box is a replacement from the original and I got it from Advance a few months ago. It has less than 300 miles on it. At the time I had also replaced the steering hose that connects the pump to the steering box.

The only other change I've made to steering components is the addition of a steering stabilizer. This was added very recently and has less than 20 miles on it. However, I have driven the truck very lightly with the steering stabilizer before the steering box started leaking like this. I wouldn't think the stabilizer manifested my problem but I want to provide full disclosure.

Below is a pic with a yellow arrow pointing to where it's leaking. Any thoughts are appreciated. Could I have done something wrong with the installation on something? Or did I just get a bad box?

 

Nearly all reman parts sold at Advance/o'reilly/autozone and most other chain stores, are built in mexico. My brother drives a semi, and spends a lot of time hauling cores to the border, and remans back to the distribution centers.......
In other words, you prolly got a poorly built reman box.

 

yeah, that's what I'm afraid of.

Truth be told this is actually the 2nd one I've put in from Advance and it was remanufactured in Mexico. I returned the first one right after I put it in as there was something wrong with the hose connectors on the steering box. I had torqued them down correctly, tried reseating them, but kept getting a small leak from the connection on the steering box which goes to the steering pump.

Ughhh, what a PITA. I do NOT recommend a Fenco steering box from Advance.

 

When I get to this point on my truck, I'm attracted to these people:
Red-Head Steering Gears, Seattle WA - Red-Head Steering Gears Home

 

I rebuilt my box with new seals and such. It stopped pouring out fluid, but now it will spit it out when turned hard to one side. I didn't see anything wrong, but I suppose there was something wrong with the hard parts. Probably the same with your reman part. Or possibly just a junk rebuild. I've had plenty of parts straight out of the box that were faulty.
plug wires, fuel pumps, starters, altenators, several master cylinders.
It's frustrating to put on a part just to have to remove it again. Of course, you also wonder if the part you put on is fine and something else was causing the problem.

 

I know rock auto is a site sponsor, but I believe their parts are of better quality than others. I am a pay once cry once kind of guy though.

 

I've gotten a lot of good parts from Rock, they have a variety of grades, qualities & prices +
they're a family-owned business (important to me).

 

I've had really good luck with rockauto also. And I even buy the cheapest stuff they have. You gotta check prices though. Shipping can really get you sometimes. But they end up being about 40% cheaper than the zone a lot of times. Especially on things like power window motors and things.

 

Smash,

I recently bought a new/reman gear box from Oriely(?) and noticed the same leak around my hose connections, so I pulled it loose and used some of that white plumbers tape on a blue spool and so far after wrapping the threads with that it seems to be holding, but I will keep an eye out for the pitman arm area. I just hate leaks.

 

teflon tape. yeah, i tried that with the first steering box replacement but it didn't work. I tried both the old and new return p/s hose and neither would seat correctly. I suspect there was some kind of nic on the steering box where it connected and that's why. Wouldn't make any other sense.

But yeah, I plan to do an exchange of it on Friday so hopefully I'll be back in action shortly.

 

Never dealt with rockauto. But, they carry many of the same brand parts as most of the chain stores.
Site sponsor or not, the quality of the reman stuff they sell is beyond their control for the most part. The only recourse they have is to drop the line(s) that have the highest failure rate. The downside of that is, there's only so many rebuilders still capable of handling high volume, so the smaller ones tend to be a bit pricier.....

 

Ditto. Their boxes scream quality.

 

i took out the steering box today and my apologies to advance. it seems the box failing was my fault. fortunately advance still replaced the steering box without any issues whatsoever.

anyway, what turns out happened is, i had installed a steering stabilizer recently. i followed the instructions that came with it but they seemed to be backwards when it came to adjusting it for proper steering setup. i think what happened was when i made the left into the carwash (and it was a pretty tight left) the steering stabilizer contracted as much as it could but since it wasn't aligned correctly it had to bend things up to allow me the hard left. well, it must have bent the sector shaft a bit which then caused the pitman arm seal to fail. it also looked like the piece of angle iron that came with the kit to attach the stabilizer to the frame also had a bend in it. it was no longer 90*, maybe closer to 80*.

i took the stabilizer off and am going to wait until spring to attempt to reinstall it again. right now it's so cold outside that i only want to do critical repairs.