Ben Todd

To make a long story short I was stuck in a snow drift most of the day. Lots of shoveling, cussing and tire spinning going on. Half way through I lost my power steering. Fluid is good, belt is good. Nothing looks wrong. any suggestions? 2014 JKUR w/35's and 3.5 GC lift thanks

DadsCJ

Looks like you need a new pump.

The JK has a week pump system and when stuck and cranking the wheels it tears it up.

Go to the dealer as it is under warranty.

Good luck.

Whiskey Bravo

Yup same happened to me.

If you are no longer under warranty, dont go to the dealers. You can buy a crown automotive replica of the stock part for half the price, and have it installed at a garage for half the price...

In mtl, canada, the dealer quoted me 1k for parts and labour. Doing it the way described above cost me 400$.

Ben Todd

Will the dealer try to get out of warranty work because of lift and big tires? I am 75 miles from the nearest dealer and it might be just as easy to buy a pump and do it myself. Is there a bigger, better pump available as an upgrade?

4x4Jesus

Honestly I would save the drive and just fix it yourself. Since it's the steering pump and they can directly blame the bigger tires I doubt they would cover it.

Billbikes

I would just change it out myself. I'm not sure if there a stronger pump that fits without too much modification. The pumps not that expensive, you'd spend about half the price in gas for the trip to the dealer and back, lol.
There's always the hydro assist option to take some strain off of the pump in the future.

Mark Doiron

I changed the pump myself. It's a pretty straight-forward job. FSM calls for pulling the air from the system using a special tool I didn't have. I went to Lowe's and picked up a rubber stopper that fit the pump fluid refill opening. Drilled a hole in it (okay, drilling holes in rubber isn't an exact science), then shoved a piece of tubing through it. Used a MityVac vacuum pump to pull the required pressure. Other's posted that wasn't necessary--you can bleed just by steering back and forth somehow. I'll let you Google that. As for improvements, when mine failed I did a little research on this. They fail because the vanes in the pump are plastic and excessive heat causes them to bend. You can find aftermarket power steering pump coolers. Haven't seen where anyone has actually written up an install, so you might have to figure that out for yourself. Here are a few pics of my install that you might find informative ...

Mark Doiron

Here's one of a variety of heat exchangers that can be used for power steering pumps. Genright also makes a larger one that's more like a traditional antifreeze radiator ...

Derale 12" Heat Sink Cooler Kit-DER13253 : Reservoirs and Coolers, Power Steering Fluid Coolers | PSC Motorsports - performance steering components, power steering

I also happened to stumble onto the price for the pumps. I paid $85 for mine from the dealer. They've gone up. A whole bunch. About triple, almost.

Ben Todd

I called and made an appointment with the dealer. If they will not warranty the pump I will tell them to leave it and I will do it myself. But I do need them to check out my tranny.6 speed that has started grinding going into 5th. 4th to 5th and 6th to 5th it now grinds a little. Not syncing.

Ben Todd

I am going to start looking for a cooling system for the power steering fluid.