Adding the cooler helped, for a while. It wasn’t long after that when the pump was again screaming at me. Unfortunately the damage had already been done from wheeling all that time without the cooler. It wasn’t a squeal that comes and goes when under severe pressure; no this was a squeal that was ever-present anytime I was in four wheel drive.

Regardless of this, I had always wished for a stronger steering system. Anyone that has had their front end bind up on them offroad knows what I mean. Not being able to turn the wheel is a nuisance, frustrating, and in some cases dangerous.

I had considered AGR steering for my Jeep in the past. Even knew some CJ drivers that had their old, gold boxes in their Jeeps. All was good until I started talking to owners with new AGR boxes. Something wasn’t right, I was hearing about problems. I got nervous and decided to wait.

Along comes Tom Allen.

Tom Allen? He’s the owner of AGR, right? Well, not anymore! He has left the company and started a new one, PSC, Performance Steering Components. I started doing some research, found some folks that were running his new stuff. Everyone I found was very happy, in fact happy is probably not strong enough to describe the comments I was hearing. I gave him a call and talked to him about some of his ideas and products. Next thing I knew we had a time to meet to discuss options.

What you see here is the first part of a three stage transformation. All the work here is being done on a 1997 Jeep Wrangler Sport still using the stock Dana 30 front axle, 35” tires and Detroit SoftLocker front locker. The first stage was changing the factory box over to a new PSC steering box, next comes his high output pump and high capacity reservoir, and finally we attempt a hydraulic assist on the TJ Dana 30.

I used what Tom calls the Jeep TJ 97-02 Competiton Kit. It includes the 621MR steering gear, SR100 reservoir w/ mount, 1250 pump, 2201K cylinder kit, 2020K hose kit, and return hoses. His part number is 9240. The steering box I got is fitted from the factory to attach the hydraulic cylinder, this is easily seen in the photo below. Installation was straight forward and simple. The installation is easier with your bumper off, but other than that it’s 2 lines, the pitman arm nut and 3 bolts. We finished off the installation with a new Kilby steering box skid plate, but it sure hurt to cover up the work of art Tom Allen made for me.

The difference is like night and day. I can easily turn the wheel from lock to lock with just one finger. Keep in mind this is still with the stock, squealing pump in my Jeep! I have put about 40 miles on the new box on the street, it is nothing like it was before, turning is so easy now. The ratio on this box is unchanged from the factory unit.

I will be going to Katemcy (think surfaces like Moab) this weekend for the first non-street test, I’ll follow up this story next week with my impressions offroad.