I have 2001 Ram w/ Cummins. Steering Gear went out at 160k. Truck went where it wanted to until stopping. At 175K Pump went out. No brakes. No steering. I was very lucky to stop w/o hitting anyone. At 180K Shaft through Vacuum pump broke. Tore up both pumps. Had it repaired. 7 blocks driving, lost all steering and brakes again.
Can the Hydra-boost (Death-Trap) be replaced with anything else? What can be done to make the truck safe and reliable? I drive the remote Mountains in Idaho as well as on highways.
I would appreciate any and all worthwhile advice, Thanks, Great 8

 

When the pump goes out you still have brakes and steering, you just have to manhandle it and stand on the brakes. You could probably swap to a vacum system, I'm not sure if it was available on an 01 but was on older 2nd gens. I'd guess that when your gear went out it filled the system with steel particles, if the flow was blocked it would probably break the shaft wich is a weak point anyways where the two pumps connect. I think I'd fix it again flush the whole system out, replace the stock cooler with a snall tranny cooler, and you could probably even come up with a filter to add inline.

 

Thank You for your reply. Let me explain again. 1st time the gear box physically split open, NO Steering, NO brakes. Box was replaced everything flushed several other part replaced. $958. and change. (160k).
2nd the shaft going into the pump from the Vacuum pump broke. Again it was almost impossible to turn the wheel. NO brakes, I was in traffic, loaded 14,000#gross. It took 2 of us to turn the wheel enough to load it onto the tow truck
3rd time: shaft broke coming out of the Vac pump, that took out the Hydraulic pump, NO steering or brakes. I had it delivered to my house on Friday.$1184.00. Sunday I was going to drive it to Church. Something blew-up sprayed STF everywhere after driving it 3 1/2 blocks. Back to the shop.
I have had as many as 14 trucks at one time, ran a metal fad business for 20 years. I have 3 journeyman cards and a million mile safe driving award.

 

Sounds like the shop you're taking it to is putting cheap parts on it and they might not have flushed all the shrapnel out of the system from when the box blew up. Changing it from hydraboost to vacuum boost is possible but you would really need to add a second vacuum pump to run the brake booster as the current vac pump has to run the hvac, cruise, 4x4, ect. In the end I think you would be better off going with a high quality steering pump (Borgeson or PSC).