Your shaft was cracked prior to this ultimate failure. Notice the rust which has formed on one half? You finally cracked the whole thing off.
This fracture pattern is not indicative of a torsional (rotational) failure. This is a fatigue fracture from bending motion (back and forth).


Bottom line is in both of your failures, you could have benefitted from the ORE sector shaft brace. Neither of your failures had anything to do with the splines twisting.

A torsional failure, similar to the breaking of an axle shaft normally looks like this:
[

They brake along a 45° because the shear stresses induced in the shaft are the same in both directions on the shaft.

 

Would you recommend going with the factory steering box again?
I have been reading about guys putting beefer 98 Durango steering boxes in their TJ's. Would that bolt in a JK?

 

Wow,
I started this thread. I changed the box and guess what. I dumped my jeep on its side last weekend and bent the sector spline shaft again. One year later. Good stuff.

 

so let me understand this since tinman080 seems to be the man on this particular subject....
my 4x4 shop tells me my sector shaft has some play in it and recommends the PSC kit...
from what i understand i do not need the whole uber expensive hydraulic assist but just their steering box which bolts right in...
is this correct?
their box comes with a new sector shaft or am i confused?
does having play in my sector shaft just mean my box is bad which causes the play and the new box assures no more play in the sector shaft?

thanx for any help in this matter

 

from what i have seen in order to repair a Sector Shaft, you have to replace the gear box. PSC does sell just a gearbox, you may be able to send yours in and they rebuild it if the Sector Shaft is fine and just has other worn parts.

 

I did not read all the post above my so I am sorry if this has already been said. I bent my worm gear in my gear box awhile back, at that time and as far as I still know today there is not an upgraded box, nor you would prollable want to buy it. To replace it from Jeep your looking around 899 plus change. Now you can do like I did and ship it off to PSC and they will rebuild it withe beefer parts for a whole lot less.