I have a 2005 KJ Limited and I'm in the middle of this exact job myself, and I've hit a problem that I'll be asking about on the main part of the forum. But what I can say so far is this...
This is the first major car mechanical job I've tried to do myself EVER. I only decided to try it myself because I read the description in the FSM and it seemed pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, the FSM assumes that you'll already have all the tools you'll need, and there are a few crucial things it doesn't tell you in advance :disgust:
Stripping down the engine to get to the point where you can remove the hoses is actually pretty simple. Remove the front grille panel, remove the hood latch, remove the radiator crossmember (this involves drilling out rivets) and then remove the fan. I have the heavy-duty cooling package so I have both an electric fan and a mechanical one, and you need a fan clutch spanner and a 36mm wrench to get the mechanical fan off the water pump pulley - if you have standard cooling you just have the electric fan, which is faster and easier to remove. Then you just remove the serpentine belt and you're ready to remove the power steering hoses.
To remove the high-pressure hose at the pump you just need a standard wrench (I think 16mm but don't quote me on that) but to remove it at the steering gear you need either a 19mm stubby wrench or a crowsfoot socket. And just to complicate things, if you want to use a stubby wrench you will have to remove the oil filter (which means draining the oil completely first), otherwise there is no room to actually turn the wrench.
Once you've disconnected both ends of the high pressure hose, you've got to remove the hose mounting bracket. This is secured by two bolts in a very inaccessible place right underneath the driver's side headlamp. You can just about get to the bolts through a small gap under the headlamp at the front of the car, but it took me the best part of 30 minutes to loosen them enough to get the bracket out - I had to finagle one small wrench onto the bolts, and then use another wrench on the box end of the first one to actually push it and make it turn the bolts. There is so little space to work that the wrenches kept falling off.
Once you've released the bracket you can remove the high-pressure hose assembly, and then swap the bracket onto the new hose (this involves bending the clamps open and then closed again, which requires a fair bit of brute force).
Where I've got stuck is with the low-pressure hose. It was the same 19mm stubby wrench to remove it from the steering gear, but I've found it impossible to remove the other end from the oil cooler. There is a pinch-clamp on that end, and it's almost completely inaccessible, in a tiny space between the headlamp surround and the radiator. All I need is to remove that end of the hose and I can put everything back together again... :angry94:
The FSM is useless, it just says "Remove the hose from the cooler". As far as I can see, unless there is some miracle trick that I just don't know about, the only solution would be to remove the grille reinforcement. This would get the complete headlamp mounting assembly (which is part of the reinforcement) out of the way, and so you'd get clear access to both the pinch-clamp AND the bolts for the hose mounting bracket (you can remove the actual headlamp on its own, but this doesn't help, because it's the headlamp mount that's causing the obstruction).
The FSM says nothing about needing to remove the grille reinforcement to change the hoses, but as I say, it seems to be the only logical way to get enough access. Removing the reinforcement seems straightforward according to the FSM (ha!), but it does involve having to drill out and replace six plastic rivets, and I'm waiting for Amazon to deliver a plastic hand riveter.
Sorry about the long rambling post, but this is where I've got to - and I thought I'd have the whole job done in a day...
