JD Fabs Howe TC Pump Steering Kit - Impressions & Opinions

Well Time for my first posting here, mainly because I have hardly seen anything about the much-interested Howe TC Pump kit from JD Fabs. I'll try to keep this as short and as useful as I can.

**Disclaimer here:** ​

• The only shop I have available to me within several hundred miles that is even willing to do custom jobs like these isn't really that good. My trust level with this shop has dropped after this whole...ordeal lol. Everyone's situation is different, and what terrain/hobbies they do with their truck, and these are mine based off of what I like to do, so take any advice, info, comments, etc. at your own risk.
• My steering rack failed, and this forced me to have a shop replace the rack and install this kit all at the same time, hence the lengthy hours.

​

Truck Setup:

-2019 TRD-Offroad with 3" lift/leveling kit. 33" tires, and yes...stock suspension, for only a bit longer though.
-I opted to use the filter on the bottom of the reservoir and that determines the location of said reservoir.​

Quick Summary and Opinion:

• Do you rock crawl and/or have wheels bigger than 33"? If so, you should check out this kit.
• Do you daily drive your truck or avoid rock crawling like me? If so, don't waste your money on this.
• Do you think this kit will magically fix any/all bump steer or tramlining? If so, do some more research and avoid this kit (also, don't be dumb like me and upgrade your suspension from stock first, then get your alignment issues figured out. Aftermarket shocks go a long damn way in ride quality/handling, and you probably won't even think about this post anymore).
• Do you have a dual battery setup like mine? if so, your reservoir will have to go next to your windshield washer fluid tank, and not back in the corner near your windshield.
  • **If you have a dual battery setup and an aftermarket cold air intake, you should refer to the pictures to see if you will even have a spot for your reservoir. An Injen Cold air intake (the one with the ram induction scoop that sits behind on top off your radiator) will sit right where the reservoir sits in my pictures.**
• This kit does not eliminate bump steer like JD Fabs claims it does, but it does drastically reduce it. If bump steer is still there you have some other issues to check into, most likely a bad alignment.
• This kit takes a very specific power steering fluid that I can't find in my city at all, and I have to order it from Amazon. Now I carry a bottle of it in my truck at all times in case something happens.
• This kit also uses a different sized serpentine belt, far less common as your OME one, but places like napa should still have them still if you break down.
• This kit eliminates a good chunk of your hard lined power steering lines, so now you have a product that is prone to even greater wear and tear.
• Depending on the model of the truck, you are able to utilize some of your OME power steering cooler and associated lines. Make sure you call JD fabs to see what they recommend for your model/engine setup.
• Overall, Install time was somewhere around 11 or so hours with line bleeding time.

The backstory:

I'll start by saying that I really only do forest service roads, some pretty big mud holes from time to time (not anymore), and I do my very best to baby the heck out of this truck. I avoid most rock crawling situations, as this is my one and only vehicle. So, in the end I decided that for me this whole kit was basically a big waste of money and now I've got more parts that aren't OME and are more prone to failure and wear and tear than before. If I had known I would have to go back to the shop that did this, and known the outcome, I would have avoided doing it in the first place. So my final call is that if you rock crawl often and/or have tires that are bigger than (not equal too here) 33", then maybe check out this kit. If not, save yourself around 3k and weeks of investigating, adjusting, and trips back to the shop. Most mechanics have never done something like this, so there's always that factor of, you need to find yourself a good mechanic that is comfortable and willing to do this kit.

Now, this mechanic that I was basically stuck with, did lots of things wrong and just overlooked tons of very simple things and then sent me on my way. And things were totally fine city-wise, until I took it into the forest and immediately had issues on just washboard gravel roads. First Issue I had was actually in the cit. Every time I started the truck I sounded like a propeller was spinning and pushing tons of fluid around in a small container somewhere near my steering column. Accelerating also made the noise very prominent. Well I researched and found that this guy never went and removed the massive air bubble that he put into my coolant system. So squeezed the main radiator line coming from my water pump to the radiator and kind of force the air bubble to the top of this hose so it would sit at the very top of the radiator. I then popped the hose off just enough to get a funnel in there and put as much coolant in there as I could. I topped off the radiator and the over-flow container, and the noise went away.

Next issue was taking it onto a gravel road with an insane amount of washboard. All this shaking about caused several of the pressure fittings that weren't tightened all the way to just barely leak air into the steering system. Obviously, this caused the new pump to squeal like a pig and groan so loud I couldn't hear my music anymore. This is the part that took so much time and trips back to the shop because there was no way of knowing which pressure fitting may have been bad. Regardless, we tightened up every fitting and hose clamp, bled the system twice and I went and tested it again a day or two later. No joy, it still leaked air and was still groaning. After that one is when we discovered the right-angle pressure fitting that went into the top of the finned "chiller" or cooler had a bur on the inside of the thread that kept it from sealing properly. We replaced that and I went on my way to test it again the following week. Same thing, thought the guy was just very weak and didn't tighten some of the other fittings very well. Well, that's when I discovered that the other right-angle fitting that comes from the top of the pump to the bottom of the reservoir was loose. You could see that it was just barely bumping against the frame and actually loosened itself from all the jarring that occurred. The main issue with this fitting was the fact that the mechanic was told by JD Fabs to not trim this section of blue hose and just leave it there (they said the longer hoses means more cooling time for the fluid, so hence leave it long). Well, this meant that this hose then draped out past my splash guard in the wheel well and then did a big loop back up to the reservoir. The big loop meant the fittings had to be pushed in in the wrong directions to achieve the loop without any bends in the hose. This also made the mechanic turn the reservoir in its mount to get the fittings to be angled better for the hose. This stupid guy then fricking zip-tied the hose to my sway bar where the sway bar mount bushing is lol. I later called JD fabs to see if I could get some help and pictures from em, and they ended up telling me that it would be just fine to shorten that hose. This meant we could turn both of those right-angle fittings more towards each other and keep them and the newly shortened hose from touching anywhere and potentially loosening themselves. Now the hose could now actually sit behind the splash guard, since it's now more of a straight line to the reservoir, along with now we could turn the reservoir clockwise more to get that fitting that's on the right side to be closer to the front of the truck and ultimately pointing more towards the back and not out to the wheel well (I don't have a picture of what that used to look like sadly, it was one hell of a sore sight to see hanging out the wheel well).

Stay with me here, last big issue. While we were working on shortening this hose, I had him look at those two low-pressure lines for the heat exchanger. He took off the hose that in one picture I've got my finger on and pointing too, and "discovered" that this hose that was supplied was too big for the little nub that it goes on. I couldn't believe this guy at this point, that he had previously just slapped that sucker on there knowing full well it was way to big and put a hoes clamp on it anyways lol. This is where we had to make a quick trip to the hardware store to hopefully find a double-sided barbed reducer to join these two new hose sizes together (which I believe the supplied black hose is 1/2" and we reduced it down to 5/8" using the most red necked reducer you've ever seen lol).

Fast forward about a month now, and I have yet to have any more issues with anything anywhere. No more whine, groaning, leaking, etc.

Testing/Performance:

Sadly, I don't have much for you guys here. Like I said I don't do rock crawling and stuff so I have no clue what that improvement might be for those that do. All I can attest to is that about 80% of my previous bump steer and harsh road handling has gone away. It is very much so still there, and that is where I have no doubt now that the main thing is I need to get rid of those trash OME shocks and the steering should be sitting real darn nice (at least here's hoping...right?). Maybe, if it's needed for some people, I could try to get a video of how my steering reacts now and upload that into this post/thread.

-Cheers y'all, this forum has been a huge source of information and ideas and it's greatly appreciated from someone who is nowhere as mechanically inclined as some are on here.​

 

How’s the turning at idle? Or low rpm?

 

I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere that JD fab said bump steer goes away. Did someone say that over the phone to you? What you’re talking about is feedback from the wheel because the line pressure is too low on the factory power steering pump. Also, I can see the disdain from the shop not installing it properly the first time around. That’s where most of the issue came from based on what you wrote. I run mines with 39 inch tires and rock crawl the piss out of it. I got no issues at all.

 

Not necessarily bump steer, but steering feedback. And the general point of my post was to essentially confirm what you're saying. People that run tires like 35's or bigger should be the ones interested. It's very pointless for someone in my shoes to have even of bought this kit. But hell, even someone who rock crawls on 33's might be interested in it. But for someone that avoids those situations where you need a high pressure pump to turn your wheels easily, it was simply a waste of money for me. I'm not dissing on JD Fabs, but they really could have done better with some more instructions and not the world's most basic three page book. Just a lot of variables that they don't tell you about and the sub-par mechanic I had to use called them numerous times for clarification on certain things cause it just didn't make sense to him. Again, more less mechanics inexperience there, but still. I'm hoping that a thread like this on a product that there's just really no info or feedback from people at least gets some traction for anybody else out there that gets interested in this kit. It's good to hear that someone had a much better experience with the kit than I did, and the more reviews within here the better! Cheers!

 

https://youtu.be/F-v44o3wWFA?si=q9xagFcL6vnJ67uy

I'll say my review on the rpm's is gonna be fairly different from someone running 35's or bigger. As the kit is more or less designed for a real big tire like that and not some cute little 33's. None of the rpm drops in the video are given any gas, but I can say that they're are right about the 1,000+ rpm quote from JD Fabs. The pump is very strong and works amazing with no noise or struggling once you get past that 1,000 rpm mark. Most of the time I can do general turns in the city with just my index finger if I wanted.

 

This has been on my list for a while. I'm on 35's and need a new rack, adding this in will double the cost. My truck is just as easy to turn now as it was from the factory, or at least it feels that way. But I'm mainly looking to get rid of a little steering wheel feedback as well.

Thanks for pointing out some of the flaws of the kit or at least your installer.

Do you know if your installer added those hose clamps on the fittings or was that specified by JDFab? They look like regular push-lok fittings, which do not requite any additional clamps. They might look like barbed fittings, but they are not. Just wanted to point out a FYI there in case someone missed something. Would hate to see a failure on a line due to the hose clamp eating away at it over time. I used to use a lot of push lok fittings and hose in my drag car, this was before ti was easy to source custom crimped hose. In this case, I would probably mock up the kit using push lok hose, and then get all new lines and ends crimped at a local race car shop.

If you're looking to do the same, local shop (thankfully I'm in Nascar country) does some of the nicest hoses in the country.

https://bmrs.net/

Here's an example of a crimped AN line.

 

Great question, so all the hose clamps and pinch clamps in any of the pictures are all provided by JD Fabs, and I initially had one extra pinch and hose clamp leftover. We decided to use those extras on that reducer we made for that black hose. And as far as I know all those pinch clamps are non-pex style clamps, so no barbs. There's just no info in the install pages that tell ya where jd fabs intended to use the pinch clamps vs the hose clamps. So my mechanic did pinch ones on the highest priority ones that the clamps could fit.

But yes, all the pressure fittings are push-lock and the kit comes with clamps for every connection regardless. Those crimped end hoses in your picture look darn sexy. Sadly, I'd probably have to drive 500 miles to a shop that could do those

 

Almost 2k!!!!

Jeeze that's insane for a power steering pump.

 

You would not believe how easy I turn my steering wheel now. Yes, it’s expensive. But for someone 35 plus tires it’s a no brainer. Like a cheat code. Lots of guys on here who’ll attest to it.

 

Why is it that the coolant hardliners need to be removed on a 3rd gen? Where do they interfere with the Howe pump? Anyone have pictures of that?

 

From my understanding and call with the Engineer/CEO behind JD fabs, this kit is a revised/modified kit of the original kit for second gen tacomas. Its designed to be used with and w/o the optional TRD package that has the steering coolant radiator on the low pressure return side. Main factor though, the JD pump is a "high flow," not necessarily a "high pressure" like it's named as, and the original hard lines restrict the increased flow on the "high pressure" non-return side and therefore warrant the entire thing worthless. Not sure if that 100% answers everything, but i do know that the only way to get the system to connect into your rack involves cutting out the hardline pipe. I haven't really looked at my hardline piping much, but im assuming due to the massive size differences you just wouldn't be able to reduce and connect a softline to a small hardline connection like that. The part that sucks is due to the shape of the oem hardline is that you have no choice but to cut it in half to get it out. That or lift the engine out enough to rotate it around and get that weird shape to clear all those components in it's way. Take that last part with a grain of salt though cause I don't really trust the guy I have to go to for this kinda shit, so he's probably just real lazy and didn't want to spend all that time removing all other sorts of the front end suspension, radiator stuff (maybe the frame was an issue too I just don't know with this dude) just to remove one little thing that wasn't going to be used anymore. Also, pressure fittings coming off the Howe pump are not in the same location/orientation as the oem one, forcing you to route the softline a slightly different way than the hardline goes.

 

Thanks for the explanation. This does make sense and this is the first explanation I’ve seen on the forums. Unfortunately this wasn’t around before I jumped into this pump and had it installed at my trusted shop and had my hard lines removed after the fact. They weren’t able to make it fit without cutting the lines, but that was all of the explanation they had or were given.

Another unfortunate thing is that I ended up with a major coolant leak after all of this and was left pondering if it was even possible to restore the OEM coolant hard lines now that the pump is already installed.

 

Would you mind hopping on the phone? I have a few questions about all this. I have a kit on order.

 

Feel free to start a "conversation" with me on here whenever, just click on my handle and start convo there. Can link email address there and email directly instead of on here.