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Will a j20 steering box bolt into the stock place on a 79 Cherokee chief?

How much stronger/better is it?

I have not done it myself, but as I recall its a bolt in year for year. ie; Dont try to put a box from an 85 J20 into a 75 Cherokee/Waggy. Their mounting is a bit different, or pretty sure it was. I know the mounts between my '75 and '81 looked a lot different.

The J20 box is a bit larger. The output shaft is the same, but the internals are larger. But I have honestly never seen an FSJ box fail, so not sure how worthwhile it is.

So if I decide to do hydro assist in the future it's probaly not worth the swap.

On the other hand......I have some slop in my stock box and planning on getting a reman and the price of the two is about the same.

I put a J20 gear on my 70 wagoneer. Not sure what year it came from but the fittings were the flare style.
IIRC the only difference between the later years waggy steering gear and the 70s is the fittings. The later uses the metric o-ring style as opposed to the flare style. Oh and possible the number of mounting holes being either 3 or 4. But they should bolt up.
The only reason I put the 20 box on was that it came with a CJ5 I had bought and it wasn't leaking.

like said above the boxes are all the same except that in 80 or so they went to the o ring fittings so you would have to change hoses or fittings.

I have 3 J-20s here, 2-'75s and a '77, and the input shaft on all 3 are larger then all the other boxes in the yard. I tore a rag joint and had a heck of a time finding the one off the parts rig to swap it out with. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the waggy or the J-10 joints to open enough to go on.

I dont know if anyone else has seen this, but it drove me nuts for a couple of days trying to fix it. X(

Did the J20 box swap a long time back.
3" vs 3.5" end cap but everything bolts right up.



Didn't have any issues with the rag joint or spline count at the steering shaft.
Running an '85 GW column in the rig.

I put a 76 Cherokee steering column in our 77 J20 and had to swap the lower section of the shaft to fit the J20 steering box.

When I put the 79 J20 box on my 88 last year, it bolted right up to the GW steering shaft.

It is confusing as I have heard a mixture of stories on this as well.