Pulled her out of winter hibernation this morning. As I was backing out the garage I noticed a wet trail on the floor. Got out to check and realised it was ATF. Immediately pulled it back in again and threw a catch pan underneath. On further investigation I found the fluid is coming from the power steering line where it transitions from metal to rubber behind the sway bar on the passenger side. The.metal line is rusted out. Looks like these lines need to be replaced in their entirety. How easy is this job? Is it something I can do in my garage?

I did this recently. Sourced new lines from ID parts. The SM is really vague, i spent more time trying to work around things than I did what I finally ended up doing which was remove the entire front of the truck.

Grill cover, grill cover support, radiator support and bumper cover. The last I was able to leave attached and pivot down so as to access the grill cover support bolts. The bumper cover to wheel flare tabs are fragile, be careful.

There was no way I was going to get the quick connects apart so I cut the lines at both ends and then took the mounts out. I separated the lines from the sockets on the bench, cleaned them up and screwed them back into place.

After that was pretty easy to get it all back together. Couple hours and hand tools is all that is needed.

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2006 Liberty CRD - the commuter. GDE Full Tq Eco, Samcos, etecno GPs

2006 GMC Sierra Duramax/Allison - the toy
RIP - 1995 Tahoe 6.5 TD
1990 JD 332, yep, the mower is a diesel too

Thanks, sounds like fairly straightforward job but has anyone had any luck replacing just that rusted section that passes through the frame? $400 is kinda steep for the entire hose set but I'm in Canada so fully expect the price to double through a dealer here.

We had the same problem. Buying the power steering hoses is probably the only way to fix this. The tubing is so hard it is impossible to flare with hand tools. There is an accumulator that evens out the pressure from the pump and it was leaking on the old one. We took off every thing except the air conditioner radiator to get access and installed a new set of power steering hoses. Now after reassembly the steering is very hard as if I was turning the steering wheel while the engine was off. We used a hand vacuum pump to pull air out of the reservoir. The fittings that are screwed into the steering gear rack are different sizes so that they cannot be incorrectly assembled.

However since it doesn't work correctly a mistake(s) was made.

Is the failure mode for a power steering pump that the vehicle is hard to steer.
The Jeep has 217xxx miles. The vehicle was not driven for three years and the power steering pump sat empty for that time. We replaced the water pump and the timing belt at the same time we replaced the power steering hoses. After I filled the power steering reservoir with a clear power steering fluid I read in the factory manual that red ATF is used for power steering fluid.

So finally got round to picking up the hoses and was pleasantly surprised to find the dealers up here are charging the equivalent of $300.

I've peeled the front back to the e-fan so have easy access to the high loop on the LHS of the vehicle. When you say radiator support are you talking about the top crossmember above the radiator? I don't see any easy way in to unfasten the supporting brackets for the hoses and disconnect them from the rack. What else do I need to remove to get in there?

Since no one seems to know I'll answer my own questions as it might make someone else's job easier in the future.

Remove the front grille, bumper cover, and grille/headlight assy. Remove the airbox, mechanical fan and shroud. You can easily access all the mounting brackets but will need to shuffle the radiator hose around a bit to get to some of them.

I naively expected the connections to the pump and rack to come apart easily but the nuts were bonded to the metal pipes. I ended up just squishing the pipes with some vice grips to prevent crud getting in there and broke them off.

I ended up taking the lower radiator hose and transmission cooler lines out as well to make it easier to thread the new steering lines in. The transmission lines looked a bit dodgy so I decided to replace them at the same time since I had the front off.