Okay Ladies and Gentleman, a little background. I busted a U-turn last week -- when I cut the wheel back the other way I had no power steering. Fluid was nasty, but full.
I would like to thanks KOPerformance for a super speedy delivery at an AWESOME PRICE!!! I ordered it on Sunday at 11:30 P.M., got it today before noon. I paid $270 for a new LF-20 P/S pump (not reman) -- Bavauto wanted more than $500, and many other places wanted >$350 for a reman -- so if you need a P/S pump go to KOPerformance.
Okay, here is the long and skinny. The most painful and difficult part of this entire repair was getting drive belt off and back on. I have a clutch fan, so I can't just take it out and get to the belt. Directly to the left of the alternator pulley and to the right of the water pump is a tensioner pulley. My car has mechanical (spring force) tensioner pulleys, so if you have hydraulic ones, I don't know how they differ. It uses a 16 mm socket, the longer socket wrench you have the better. In addition, you will want to use a socket that doesn't require an extension (i.e. 1/2" to 1/4" drive) because with the fan right there you won't be able to get it in the close quarters. Just remember, for the mechanical tensioner, you don't have to take off the dust cap, there is a separate nut (so if you take off a dust cover and loosen that bolt, you are actually removing the tensioner pulley and not just relaxing the slack on the drive belt). Use Dexron III ATF or better. I used Mobil 1 Synthetic -- which was Dexron VI, so you probably can't even get Dexron III anymore.
This is the new pump
Yes, the fluid is black, NASTY!!!
Up close...
A Siphon I used to get the fluid out of the reservoir, this minimizes the amount that pours onto your head when you remove the fluid lines to the pump.
Look at the sun...still couldn't get through the muck that was my fluid.
Once again.
This is the fluid line to the power steering rack. Use a 17 mm open ended wrench to remove it -- fluid is going to come out, so make sure that you have a receptacle to catch it. If you look to the left of the picture, you will see the black plastic elbow -- this is the line from the reservoir to the pump. I replaced the hose clamp (I know you can't see the clamp)
By the way, the pump shaft shouldn't come out like this -- this means it's sheared.
The bolt attached to the bracket is (1 of 3) that holds the pump to the engine block. All three are 13 mm, and require a torque of 16 ft-lbs when reinstalling. I personally bumped it up to 18 ft-lbs for good measure because of the extensions needed to get to the bolts. The real difference between 16 and 18 ft-lbs? Negligible really...
** here is a lesson learned. Take the pulley off of the pump while it is still bolted to the car (3 bolt hold the pulley to the pump, 13 mm. Use a rubber mallet to tap it off). This will give you move room to move around to get the bolt (3 of 3) below. Similarly, when you are putting the pump back on, pump the pulley back on last. That way you can get a torque wrench up to bolt (3 of 3)
Bolt (2 of 3) To the right of the red. This is on the back side of the pump (bolt head facing rear of vehicle), top left.
Bolt (3 of 3) Center of the picture above the pulley. This is on the front side of the pump (bolt head facing front of vehicle), top left.
Old pump...once again shaft shouldn't come out.
Sheared shaft.
So this is how the pump works. This picture is of the volute of the pump. As you can see, it is NOT constant volume. Centrifugal force from the rotation causes the impellers (little slants of metal placed in grooves of the pump) to slide out and move fluid. When the volute gets smaller, the impeller slides back in the groove and everything is gravy. If you look close enough, you can see that one of the impeller pieces broke off and lodged in the thin region of the volute. This caused the pump to seize and the shaft to shear.
New pump in the car...she's a beauty.
Fluid hose connections made up. Note the new clamp on the reservoir hose. You may want to replace this hose, seeing that is you unhook it from the reservoir and pump, it pulls right out -- I did not replace it.
NEW FLUID!!!! Yes it supposed to be red, not black -- who would have guessed.
More fluid.
How you get under your car is your preference, I use ramps. Installation is EASY...just opposite of removal. I object to people calling this a 15-30 minute job. I would say 1-1.5 hours. It took me about 3 because I was taking pictures and fighting with the tensioner pulley (definitely get a friend to hold the wrench on the pulley nut -- I had to hold the tension from under the car and put the belt on at the same time, and it was not fun)
The last part after she is all buttoned up and refilled is to get the car off the stands or ramps and start it. Take the steering wheel from full lock to full lock at minimum of two times (from the Bentley manual). It was still difficult to turn at first and I was getting pissed. I gave the engine a little juice and tried again, and it worked like a charm. After that I refilled the fluid.
I did actually siphoned out the fluid in the reservoir after it started working again. This is because of all the crap that was in the lines that I couldn't get out (all the gunk in the rack and lines). I can tell that it mixed with other fluid, but it is still red. I plan to flush it (from the reservoir since it is a closed system) next week for good measure.
On a scale of 1-10 of difficult I would give this a 3. This most difficult part was getting the belt off and on. If you don't have a clutch fan, and can just pull out the fan and shroud -- this is even more easy. I did neglect to say take the cover off the bottom of the car, but I figured that was self explanatory. Hope this helps, because all the other write-ups provided little instruction. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
I would like to thanks KOPerformance for a super speedy delivery at an AWESOME PRICE!!! I ordered it on Sunday at 11:30 P.M., got it today before noon. I paid $270 for a new LF-20 P/S pump (not reman) -- Bavauto wanted more than $500, and many other places wanted >$350 for a reman -- so if you need a P/S pump go to KOPerformance.
Okay, here is the long and skinny. The most painful and difficult part of this entire repair was getting drive belt off and back on. I have a clutch fan, so I can't just take it out and get to the belt. Directly to the left of the alternator pulley and to the right of the water pump is a tensioner pulley. My car has mechanical (spring force) tensioner pulleys, so if you have hydraulic ones, I don't know how they differ. It uses a 16 mm socket, the longer socket wrench you have the better. In addition, you will want to use a socket that doesn't require an extension (i.e. 1/2" to 1/4" drive) because with the fan right there you won't be able to get it in the close quarters. Just remember, for the mechanical tensioner, you don't have to take off the dust cap, there is a separate nut (so if you take off a dust cover and loosen that bolt, you are actually removing the tensioner pulley and not just relaxing the slack on the drive belt). Use Dexron III ATF or better. I used Mobil 1 Synthetic -- which was Dexron VI, so you probably can't even get Dexron III anymore.
This is the new pump
Yes, the fluid is black, NASTY!!!
Up close...
A Siphon I used to get the fluid out of the reservoir, this minimizes the amount that pours onto your head when you remove the fluid lines to the pump.
Look at the sun...still couldn't get through the muck that was my fluid.
Once again.
This is the fluid line to the power steering rack. Use a 17 mm open ended wrench to remove it -- fluid is going to come out, so make sure that you have a receptacle to catch it. If you look to the left of the picture, you will see the black plastic elbow -- this is the line from the reservoir to the pump. I replaced the hose clamp (I know you can't see the clamp)
By the way, the pump shaft shouldn't come out like this -- this means it's sheared.
The bolt attached to the bracket is (1 of 3) that holds the pump to the engine block. All three are 13 mm, and require a torque of 16 ft-lbs when reinstalling. I personally bumped it up to 18 ft-lbs for good measure because of the extensions needed to get to the bolts. The real difference between 16 and 18 ft-lbs? Negligible really...
** here is a lesson learned. Take the pulley off of the pump while it is still bolted to the car (3 bolt hold the pulley to the pump, 13 mm. Use a rubber mallet to tap it off). This will give you move room to move around to get the bolt (3 of 3) below. Similarly, when you are putting the pump back on, pump the pulley back on last. That way you can get a torque wrench up to bolt (3 of 3)
Bolt (2 of 3) To the right of the red. This is on the back side of the pump (bolt head facing rear of vehicle), top left.
Bolt (3 of 3) Center of the picture above the pulley. This is on the front side of the pump (bolt head facing front of vehicle), top left.
Old pump...once again shaft shouldn't come out.
Sheared shaft.
So this is how the pump works. This picture is of the volute of the pump. As you can see, it is NOT constant volume. Centrifugal force from the rotation causes the impellers (little slants of metal placed in grooves of the pump) to slide out and move fluid. When the volute gets smaller, the impeller slides back in the groove and everything is gravy. If you look close enough, you can see that one of the impeller pieces broke off and lodged in the thin region of the volute. This caused the pump to seize and the shaft to shear.
New pump in the car...she's a beauty.
Fluid hose connections made up. Note the new clamp on the reservoir hose. You may want to replace this hose, seeing that is you unhook it from the reservoir and pump, it pulls right out -- I did not replace it.
NEW FLUID!!!! Yes it supposed to be red, not black -- who would have guessed.
More fluid.
How you get under your car is your preference, I use ramps. Installation is EASY...just opposite of removal. I object to people calling this a 15-30 minute job. I would say 1-1.5 hours. It took me about 3 because I was taking pictures and fighting with the tensioner pulley (definitely get a friend to hold the wrench on the pulley nut -- I had to hold the tension from under the car and put the belt on at the same time, and it was not fun)
The last part after she is all buttoned up and refilled is to get the car off the stands or ramps and start it. Take the steering wheel from full lock to full lock at minimum of two times (from the Bentley manual). It was still difficult to turn at first and I was getting pissed. I gave the engine a little juice and tried again, and it worked like a charm. After that I refilled the fluid.
I did actually siphoned out the fluid in the reservoir after it started working again. This is because of all the crap that was in the lines that I couldn't get out (all the gunk in the rack and lines). I can tell that it mixed with other fluid, but it is still red. I plan to flush it (from the reservoir since it is a closed system) next week for good measure.
On a scale of 1-10 of difficult I would give this a 3. This most difficult part was getting the belt off and on. If you don't have a clutch fan, and can just pull out the fan and shroud -- this is even more easy. I did neglect to say take the cover off the bottom of the car, but I figured that was self explanatory. Hope this helps, because all the other write-ups provided little instruction. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.