How to Replace a Power Steering Pump

Hey guys Chris fix this and today I'm going to show you how to

replace

a

power

steering

pump

as well as the

power

steering

lines in your car or truck and we'll use my 2004 bmw e46 as an example because it needs a new one. power steering

pump

I'm turning this car into a drag car, but before I do that we definitely need to change the pump. I'll show you why in a second the nice thing about installing power steering pumps is that once you do them I have a good idea how to do them all, they work anyway so after you finish watching this video you will be able to change the power steering pump and lines of your vehicle without problem, so let's get started.

Now, if you think you have a problem with your power steering because you hear noise or the steering is hard, long before you go and assume it's a bad power steering pump, the first thing you should do is check your steering fluid. power steering, so locate the power steering. fluid reservoir which is this right here so let's unscrew the cap and check our fluid level and you can see here we have fluid here which is good and our fluid is filled up to that fill line perfectly so unfortunately this is not ours problem and I say unfortunately because many times it is not the power steering pump that fails, but rather a leak from the reservoir or a line that you can easily

replace

and just top off the fluid and that's it.

In this case that's definitely not the problem and let me show you why so let's start the car and look at this we have to turn the steering wheel oh man this is very hard to turn which is surprising because I've had cars with bad conditions. and power steering pumps are never that difficult to turn. Now imagine doing this for 14 to 16 hours in an endurance race. It will never happen. I can't do this on the street. It's just not good, so the power steering pump definitely needs to be replaced. this car now very quickly I want to cover a couple of other common reasons why your steering is stiff it's hard to turn it could be a bad power steering pump but it could also be something else so let me show you how to diagnose it for example , if your steering is stiff and you hear a grinding noise coming from the power steering pump.

Listen to this and this gives you a perfect example of a power steering pump making a grinding noise. Now in this case, I know Fords have noisy power steering pumps. it's a mazda b3000 it was owned by ford that pump is actually a ford pump so i'm not worried it's been like this since i bought the truck but if the power steering pump never made any strange noises and all of a sudden started making noises that's a sign that you have a problem sometimes it's as simple as the old fluid is worn out and not lubricating as much as it should and that's what's giving you the noise and look at this, that's the old fluid and this en With the new fluid you can clearly see the difference between the two, that old fluid doesn't lubricate as well so it makes more noise and sometimes that's it, all you have to do is remove the old fluid , add some new liquid and that's it.

Well, I'll link the video on how to flush the power steering fluid in the description below so you can easily find it now after flushing out all the old fluid and putting in some new fluid if it's still there. makes noise and is still difficult to drive, it is very likely that the power steering pump is faulty and needs to be replaced now. One last common symptom that I want to cover if it is difficult to drive and while driving you can hear your belt squeaking, there is a possibility that your belt is loose or the tensioner is loose and that is causing your steering to be difficult as well.

So what you could do is start the car and have someone turn the steering wheel and see if the pulley is slowing down like this or even stopping completely. so and that could just be the belt being loose or worn out now I just wanted to quickly cover those different symptoms if you have a problem with tight steering because it's not always going to be a bad power steering pump, but in this case of my BMW, it is definitely a bad power steering pump so let me show you how to install a new one and here are all the tools and products you will need to do this job as usual we are using common hand tools.

So if you have a basic toolset you will be able to do this. You need some pliers, ratchet wrenches, sockets, extensions, and a funnel. That's all. You can change all this. Now I bought a power steering pump kit. it came with a new power steering pump it came with the crush washers that we need it came with a new reservoir and this is actually quite important many cars have a filter in the reservoir in this case for the bmw the filter is not repairable I can't get it out , so it is definitely the original deposit. It has over 250,000 miles.

It could be clogged. It could have been the reason your power steering pump went bad, so you'll definitely want to spend a few extra bucks and replace that reservoir. then we have a low pressure line that I don't think we're going to need, but we have it just in case it comes with the kit and we have a high pressure line that we're definitely going to need and let me show you why if If you take a look here, you'll be able to see our high pressure line is all rusty and rotten and this is just a time bomb waiting to go bad and that's why it has to be replaced and finally the last thing you'll need is new power steering fluid so we can fill the system after we replace everything now to make it easier for you.

I'll be sure to link all the tools and products I use in this video in the description so you can easily find them now. I got this car for a steal of eleven hundred dollars but that's because there are a lot of things wrong with this and the most important thing we need to fix right away is the power steering pump because otherwise this thing just can't be fixed drive now. I bought the car because eBay Motors challenged me to build a drag race car for the Lemons 24 Hours, which means we have to fix this car up on a strict budget.

Now every 10 over that 500 budget is a penalty turn, so unfortunately with that 1100. The purchase price is way over the budget, but luckily we could sell a bunch of pieces and get that price down. If we sell all of those parts, we're at $430, but that doesn't include the new power steering pump, so it's the least expensive. The power steering pump I was able to find was on eBay Motors and we have a complete kit here for a hundred and forty dollars with everything we need. Luckily, eBay has that bid button, so I offered the guy a hundred dollars and he came back with a hundred. and ten dollars and that's pretty good for all those parts and that takes us to 540 over budget, which gives us a four lap penalty, which is totally worth it because we need power steering on this car to do a race. 16 hour endurance without it is not an option and I want to say a big thank you to eBay Motors for supporting the video and giving me this challenge.

It is fun. I can't wait to hit the track, so now let me show you how to replace the power steering pump. First. The power steering pump on this car is accessed from under the car so I'm using ramps to raise the front end but you can also use a jack and a jack position and don't forget to chalk the wheels to prevent the self roll. by accident, okay, so the car lifted safely now let me show you where the power steering pump is, we have to go under the vehicle and it's located right up there and as you can see there's not much room to work with, we have the Radiator right here we have our sway bar right here we may have to disconnect the sway bar and lower it we'll see but we'll have to disconnect the belt we'll probably have to remove the pulley and then hopefully we'll have enough. room to remove the bomb, but before we do any of that, there is a high probability that we will make a mess.

Power steering fluid usually gets everywhere so what I like to do is take a piece of cardboard and slide it underneath to at least contain some of the mess and the first thing we do before we touch any lines or anything we want Drain as much liquid as possible from the reservoir and all you need is something simple like a turkey baster to get the liquid out. so let's remove this lid and suck the liquid straight out of the reservoir and in this case I have a little cup on the side of the reservoir to catch all the old liquid, the more liquid we can get out now the less liquid there will be then it will leak out and make a big mess , that's why I always do this first perfect, so that's exactly what we want, we remove a bunch of liquid and we put the cap back in there and while we're up here we're going to We have to remove this reservoir, so we might as well disconnect the air box so we can easily access it and make there are two bolts here so loosen the first bolt that's one and then loosen the second one so with those two bolts removed and now we can remove the flow sensor of massive air from our air box on the side.

Here you can see that there is a tab that we can remove with our finger and remove the tab on the other side as well and then the dough. The mass air flow sensor could be removed, so with our mass air flow sensor removed normally there would be a couple of fasteners, those plastic clips that hold this piece here, but it's loose and ready to go, there are no fasteners there , so now we can remove the air. box by moving it a little and taking it out like this and with all that removed we have plenty of room to get to our tank now the tank has two hoses connected we have a cooler hose that runs this way to the front of the car and we have a feed hose that it goes to the power steering pump under the car before we remove anything here the first thing we need to do is go under the car and remove the power steering pump and removing the pump is pretty simple we want to First remove this pulley so let's go to loosen the bolts while the belt is attached so this doesn't turn then we'll take off the belt then we'll take off the pulley and there are two lines we have high pressure line here and then we have a low pressure line on the back and then It's held on with three bolts, that's all, so the first thing to do is loosen the three pulley bolts while the belt is still around the pulley, which will help prevent the pulley from just spinning while we loosen these bolts. .

Now we need to take the tension off the belt and this car uses a T50 Torx for the tensioner so place the ratchet on the tensioner pulley and turn it clockwise to remove it. the tension of the belt and now we can slide the belt off the pulley so now there is no reason to remove the entire belt from the engine so let's move it out of the way so it will be easy to install later and finally finish removing the three bolts that hold it that power steering pulley is fine so with the three bolts removed hopefully this pulley will just come loose and of course it won't because it won't come off without a fight so you have to be careful because this pulley is actually made of Plastic most of the time they are made of metal, but this one has to be made of something that we can break easily and, ah, this definitely won't go without a fight and speaking of breaking easily, you'll see there's a piece right there. chipped pulley, so we're going to have to do it.

There's more damage right there. We will have to replace this pulley anyway, but let's say your pulley is in good condition. You must be careful not to damage it. What are you going to do? is to put a lever under the pulley and then you're going to pry it out slightly, so I'm prying it out with my screwdriver a little bit and then I'm going to turn this and pry it out a little bit, twist it. and you're just going to repeat that until this thing comes loose, which it's not coming off, I might have to break it right here, let's see and that's it, so don't plan on a pulley like this coming off easily if you live. in an area where there might be rust, a little bit of rust here, the rust welded this up and even if we remove it you can see there are some cracks here so it will definitely need to be replaced but there you go so we have access to our pump and now we can take it off and with the pulley off we don't want to undo the bolts on the pump there's still a bolt there there's a bolt there and then there's a bolt there before we unscrew it I need to keep it bolted down so we can loosen these steering lines assisted, so grab a wrench if you have a flare nut wrench that would fit here, that would be perfect.

No, I only have a normal key and this one does notfits. up there it does, but there's not enough room, that's all the room we have until we get to the sway bar that's right there, so we won't be able to turn this with this wrench and as always, if you have the right tools. makes your job much easier. I never actually use this game. I have a set of crow's foot wrenches for flare nuts. We need a 17 millimeter and this is going to make it a lot easier to loosen that fastener so the flare nut drivers are designed to slide it right over the power steering line and then you can put it on the nut that way and then attach the square end of your ratchet and with a little bit of torque, all good, that nut is loose, so now we can remove it. rest of the way, then we can take the line out of the pump and have a catch can ready because there will be some residual fluid in the pump and you can see we have almost no fluid left, that's why it's important to first drain the reservoir, much less Liquid means a lot less mess so with our high pressure line removed we now need to disconnect the low pressure line and this line has a single use crimp on the hose connector so put a flat blade screwdriver in there and open the crimp connector, then we can push the hose off the power steering pump like this and finally, with all the hoses removed, we can remove the pump now, at the front, here are two bolts that need to be removed to loosen up nicely this one first and then release the second one and loosen it completely, so now with both bolts removed from the front of the bracket, we have one more bolt holding this pump on the back. from the pump, so if we go this way, right next to the tie rod, there is a space where we could access the last bolt there, so we will need a long extension to get to this bolt and put that extension through over there.

Now we just need to put it on the head of the bolt and release it, then we can unscrew it all the way and with that bolt out, our pump is loose and we should be able to remove it right in this space like this, perfect. So let's get out of the old and into the new. Now you can see that the new pump doesn't have this bracket here on the front and on the back, so we're going to have to take the bracket off and put it there and that's all we have to do with the pump and then for the pulley , this is just a cheap plastic pulley that broke, there is no way we can reuse it, so I bought a new aluminum one, it's a little heavier but it won't be damaged. it won't crack easily and it's much more durable, so let's change the bracket from the old pump to the new one and we could start here on the front by undoing the three fasteners, removing them completely and then putting them away. in the same orientation, switch it directly to the new pump so we know it's installed in the correct direction, so now before we screw this in, add some medium strength threadlocker to the fasteners to prevent vibration from loosening them , hand tighten all three fasteners and torque them to specifications, in this case 16 foot-pounds, now we can remove the rear support from the pump, so loosen both bolts and then loosen them completely now we can transfer this to the new pump, but first remember to add your medium shrink threadlocker to the threads, then orient the bracket correctly on the back of the new pump, hand tighten those bolts and torque them to 16 foot-pounds and as always, every time you install new parts, I always like to make sure they are correct. so take a quick look at it and make sure it looks identical and this makes all the bolt holes line up where the hoses go and this is the exact same size and the brackets fit perfectly so we're ready to do the same thing .

With our new pulley it's very important, even though this is plastic, this is aluminum, we want to make sure that they are the exact same size, the exact same number of ribs and these two are identical, so it's perfect and it fits perfectly on our pump , so we're good. Let's go here and real quick, here's the old pump. Let's open it up and see if we can tell where it went wrong. Could you look at that? There is a piece of metal that broke off and is jamming this pump and not allowing it. make it rotate and if we remove the part that pumps, check it, the shaft that connects the pulley to the pump is cut and it is supposed to be connected right there, when the pulley rotates, the shaft is supposed to rotate the pump, but Ya no, it's cool to see how this pump failed, so let's replace it now before installing our new pump.

We don't want any of the old fluid to get into the new pump and contaminate it, so let's replace the old one. Reservoir and doing that is really simple, there's a bolt right here that holds this reservoir and once you remove it, you can take the reservoir out. Now there are two hoses here, this hose is disconnected at the power steering pump, we have nothing to worry about. about disconnecting it here, this hose is connected right here and it goes to a cooler and we need to disconnect this down here and when we disconnect the line we don't want power steering fluid to get into the alternator so I'm Let's use some aluminum foil to protect the alternator and catch any extra fluid that may drip.

Now let's open the crimped hose clamp and remove it well. Don't worry, we will now replace it with a bolt-on hose clamp. we could remove this hose and the trick to removing the hoses that are stuck there is to twist the hose to release it, you hear that clicking sound, that's exactly what you want to hear and that's how you loosen a hose that's almost 20 years old and has over 250 000 miles and finally let's loosen the tank clamp bolt and once it's loose we can take the tank out like this with the old and broken one, you can hear the filter in there is loose and with the new one and that's Okay, now you can see that we have a hose that we removed and that connects to the power steering pump.

I'm going to reinstall a new hose that came with the kit right on this one and we're just going to make sure we have the hose. in the right place, so it's going to go to this right here and then we're going to take our new hose with the hose clamp and we're going to slide it on just like that now every time you tighten a hose clamp on a piece of plastic like this. just tighten it, don't over tighten it because you might break the plastic nipple that it slides on with that tight fit, pull on it to make sure it doesn't come off and that's not going anywhere so now we can feed the hose into below. where the new pump will be installed, then we can put the reservoir on the bracket like that and then we could tighten the holding bolt on the reservoir tightly and finally let's not forget the hose clamp on the cooler line, then we can connect it . to the reservoir and tighten the hose clamp until it is snug and not pretty, so our new reservoir is there, our two hoses are connected, now there is one last set of hoses that we need to replace and they are these ones here, high pressure lines, so let's go under the car and replace them.

Here's our rotten old line that's barely holding on and here's our nice new line, so the first thing we're going to have to do is disconnect this from here, so let's loosen this up. screw it in and remove it and then now with the line disconnected from the subframe we need to remove the line from the steering rack so let's loosen the steering rack bolt and unscrew it completely by hand and then carefully remove the line. and make sure you don't forget to remove the crush washer that is on the steering rack because we don't want to duplicate these crush washers when we go to install the new one, so let's leave the old and go in with the new.

First we want to tighten the mounting bracket to hold the line in place and with that bolted we can now bolt the other side onto the power steering rack. Now you want to grab the banjo bolt that we removed earlier and make sure that Remove the old crush washer from this bolt and replace it with a nice new crush washer that comes with the kit, then put the bolt through the line and then we need Add one more crush washer to the other side of our new sandwich bolt. high pressure line and this will seal it to the power steering rack.

Now let's hand tighten that bolt into the rack to make sure it's not cross threaded and once it's completely hand tightened, torque it to 26 foot pounds. Now this torque is important to compress the crush washers to prevent leaks, so now let's install the new power steering pump, so put it in place like this and then take a fastener that I already put threadlocker on and tighten it by hand right there with the other bra. hand tighten it and then tighten both to 16 foot pounds, that's one and that's the other. Now put the last bolt into the long extension and we'll feed it all the way behind the pump.

We have to screw that bolt in. there okay and then we could tighten it as well so with the three bolts holding the pump now we can connect the two lines to the power steering pump so let's start by connecting the low pressure line and I'm doing this from the top so it's just by feel I can't see and I think that's where I need to connect it perfect so slide it in there until the hose bottoms out against the end of the connector and then all we have to do is tighten the hose clamp down to let it be adjusted like this.

Now let's connect the high pressure line and I have a little bit of power steering fluid on my finger to lubricate the o-ring at the end of the line so it doesn't get tight when I go and install it, then we can push the line into the pump and screw it on that nut on the pump by hand until it will not tighten any further. Now we can slide the crow's foot wrench over the nut and this should tighten up to 25 feet. lbs good, perfect with that low torque, we're almost done, let's put the pulley on, put the belt on, fill it with power steering fluid, bleed it and see if it works, so let's put the pulley on the pump and I've put it on. medium strength thread lock on each bolt, so hand tighten them and then put the other one on, it's two and finally it's three.

Now we can put the ratchet on the belt tensioner and loosen the tension on the belt that way and then we can slide the belt. the power steering pulley and it's tight, but put it in there just like that and we were finally able to torque the three pulley bolts to 16 foot-pounds, so with our power steering pump installed we have one thing left to install. and that's our air box so let's put it in place so let's insert the mass air flow sensor then we have these two bolts that we need to tighten until they're tight and finally we put the mass air flow sensor back on both sides and with massive air flow. sensor secured now we have one thing left to do and that is to fill our power steering system.

Now it is very important that you use the correct fluid when filling your power steering system. You just did all this work to fix this. He doesn't want to do it. It will ruin it, so check your owner's manual and make sure you are using the correct fluid. In this case, we're using full synthetic and right on the label it says it's made for BMW, so it has all the additives we need to keep this system running. Well then let's unscrew the reservoir cap and put some new power steering fluid in there and man oh man am I excited to drive this car with power steering.

It hasn't been fun to drive at all because the steering is horrible even when we're going fast, it takes a lot of effort to drive well so two 12 ounce bottles later we're full to the brim and you can see I purposely overfilled it because one Once we start the car, our new pump will stink up everything. This fluid is in the system and we don't want it to dry out, so now we are going to bleed the power steering system and to do this we will start the car and turn the steering wheel from lock to lock. so let's put it into gear and then all we have to do is turn the steering wheel all the way to lock it in one direction and then go back the other way to lock it in the other direction.

Let me show you now at the beginning, this is going to be a little difficult to do because there is no power steering fluid in the line, so we are literally not using power steering even though the pump is new, what we are trying to do. is to force that power steering fluid up the lines towards the pump and into the power steering rack so that it locks completely, it will hold it there for about a second or two and then we'll go back in the other direction and again until it locks it in the another address. forcing the air out and pushing the new fluid in there and we should be able to do this in about five turns and get this power steering pump niceand light, but right now it's definitely difficult, okay, and that's blocking the other direction and then coming back. oh man this is definitely not easy to do but it's definitely getting lighter oh here we go baby okay so man that's a workout but that's what I'm talking about check this out this is perfect , so now we have forced most of the air out, you can still hear the power steering pump making a little noise, but we are forcing the air out, we are getting new fluid and that's it, so take it back and forth from bumper to bumper about five times. or until you hear the power steering pump calm down and the steering is nice and smooth and we're done, that's it, so now what we're going to do is go check the power steering fluid reservoir. to top it all off and then we're going for a ride we're ready to go and you can see all the fluid was sucked up by the pump and the power steering lines which is fine so let's fill it up and it looks like we'll need almost the entire bottle, so in total we used three 12 ounce bottles to get this job done right.

Now tighten the lid and then remove it to check the liquid level and don't worry if it's this frothy, that's just the new thing. The pump agitates the liquid as there is a lot of air in there it will bubble over time and as you can see we are completely full so we are ready to go and now that is no more noise. and it's not taking in any more fluid, let's go under the car and check for leaks, just do a quick inspection and look for drips and everything looks good and the fittings on the pump are drip free as well, so we're good to go, that that's all.

That's it, you just learned how to replace the power steering pump. Now take your car for a nice long test drive and enjoy your new power steering. And upon returning from the test drive, the steering is buttery smooth, effortless, and us. We no longer exercise every time we go and drive the car, so that's exactly what you want now if you have a bunch of dirty fluid left over. You could recycle this at your local recycling center. You could take it to some parts stores and some mechanic shops, they will recycle it for you and you can see why I recommended using one of these pieces of cardboard.

You are going to spill things that are going to accumulate. a little dirty and that makes cleaning nice and easy, so there you go, that's all you needed to know about how to replace the power steering pump reservoir and power steering lines in your car or truck. It's that simple and now you know how to do it. I hope the video was helpful if it was, remember to like it if you're not a subscriber, consider hitting the subscribe button, and as always, all the tools and products I used in this video are linked in the description.