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Alex-
I am just waiting for this to happen to me, I've already ripped the ears off of one box, so I went with a brace.... What I'd do is to cut two pieces of plate (3.16 or 1/4 would do it nicely) to go on either side of the rail where the steering box goes, and extend them a good ways past the bolts on both ends. Then sandwich the "frame" there and weld that all together. Then remove the box brace. I have a feeling that beefing up the mounting point for the box will help a lot more than transferring the stress to an area that wasn't designed to take that kind of load. I believe that most steering boxes break because they can flex the unibody where they're mounted, allowing them to twist around and break bolts, or the ears off of the box. As for the cracks that resulted from the brace, simply weld them up and take the brace off.
Hope that makes some sense, I plan on doing mine at some point, but I always seem to have other more pressing projects.
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94 ZJ I-6 Laredo, np231, 7" custom Long Arms, 36x12.50 TSLs, 9" HP D44, 4.88s, Spool, miller locker
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