How to Replace a Power Steering Pump

hey guys chris fix here and today i'm going to show you how to replace a power steering pump as well as power steering lines in your car or truck and we'll be using my 2004 bmw e46 as an example because it needs a new power steering pump i'm turning this car into an endurance car but before we do that we definitely need to change the pump out i'll show you why in a second now the good thing about installing power steering pumps is once you do one you pretty much have a good idea on how to do them all they work pretty much all the same so after you guys are done watching this video you'll be able to change the power steering pump and lines in your vehicle no problem so let's get started now if you think you have a power steering issue because you hear noise or because your steering is difficult well before you go and assume it's a bad power steering pump the very first thing you should do is check the power steering fluid 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 in here which is good and our fluid is filled all the way up to that fill line right there perfectly so this unfortunately is not our problem and i say unfortunately because a lot of times it's not the power steering pump that goes bad instead it's a leak from the reservoir or a line that you could easily replace and just top off your fluid and you're good to go now in this case that is definitely not the problem and let me show you why so let's start up the car and check this out we gotta turn the steering wheel oh man this is so difficult to turn which is surprising because i've had cars with bad power steering pumps and they are never this difficult to turn now imagine doing this for 14 to 16 hours in an endurance race never gonna happen can't do this on the street it's just not good so the power steering pump definitely has to be replaced in this car now real quickly i want to cover a couple other common reasons 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 groaning noise coming from the power steering pump take a listen to this and this gives you a perfect example of a power steering pump making a groaning noise now in this case i know that fords have loud power steering pumps this is a mazda b3000 it was owned by ford that pump is actually a ford pump so i'm not concerned that's been like that since i got the truck but if your power steering pump never made any weird noises and then all of a sudden it 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 isn't lubricating as much as it should and that's what's giving you the noise and check this out that is the old fluid and this is the new fluid you could clearly see the difference between the two that old fluid won't lubricate as well so you get more noise and sometimes that's all it is all you have to do is remove the old fluid add some new fluid and you're good to go and i'll link the video on how to flush your power steering fluid in the description below so you could easily find it now after you go and flush out all the old fluid and get some new fluid in there if it is still making noise and it's still hard to steer there's a good chance that your power steering pump is bad and needs to be replaced now one last common symptom i want to cover if it's hard to steer and while you steer you can hear your belt squeaking there's a chance that your belt is loose or the tensioner is loose and that's causing your hard steering so what you could do is turn the car on and have somebody turn the steering wheel and look to see if the pulley is slowing down like this or even stopping completely like that and that could be just the belt is loose or worn out now i just wanted to real quickly cover those different symptoms if you have a problem with the steering getting tight because it's not always going to be a bad power steering pump but in this case for my bmw it definitely is 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're going to need to get this job done as usual we are using common hand tools so if you have a basic tool set you'll be able to do this you need some pliers ratchet wrenches sockets extensions as well as a funnel and that's really it you'll be able to change all this now i bought a power steering pump kit it came with a brand new power steering pump came with the crush washers we need it came with a new reservoir and this is actually pretty important a lot of cars have a filter in the reservoir in this case for the bmw the filter is not serviceable you can't get it out so that's definitely the original reservoir this has over 250 000 miles it could be clogged up it could have been the reason why the power steering pump went bad so you definitely want to spend a few extra bucks and replace that reservoir then we have a low pressure line which i don't think we're gonna need but we have it just in case came with the kit and we have a high pressure line which we are definitely going to need and let me show you why if you take a look right here you can see our high pressure line is all rusted and rotted and this is just a ticking time bomb waiting to go bad and that's why this has to get replaced and finally the last thing you're going to need is new power steering fluid so we could fill the system after we replace everything now to make it easy for you guys i will be sure to link all the tools and products i use in this video down in the description so you could easily find them now i got this car for a steal of a deal at eleven hundred dollars but that's because there is a lot wrong with this and the most important thing that we need to fix right away is that power steering pump because otherwise this thing just it's not drivable now i bought the car because ebay motors challenged me to build an endurance race car for the 24 hours of lemons so that means we have to fix this car up on a strict budget now every 10 over that 500 budget is one penalty lap so unfortunately with that 1100 purchase price we are way over budget but luckily we could sell a bunch of parts and bring that price down and if we do sell all those parts we're at 430 dollars but that doesn't include the new power steering pump so the least expensive power steering pump i could find was on ebay motors and we have a whole kit here for a hundred and forty dollars with everything we need luckily ebay has that make an offer button so i offered the guy a hundred dollars and he came back at a hundred and ten dollars and that's pretty good for all those parts and that brings us to 540 over budget which gives us four penalty laps which is completely worth it because we need power steering in this car doing a 16-hour endurance race without it is not an option and i do want to thank ebay motors very much for supporting the video and giving me this challenge this is a lot of fun i cannot wait to get on the track so now let me show you guys how to replace your power steering pump so first the power steering pump in this car is accessed from under the car so i'm using ramps to lift the front end but you could also use a jack and jack stance and don't forget to chalk off the wheels to keep the car from rolling by accident okay so the car safely lifted up now let me show you where the power steering pump is we have to go underneath the vehicle and it is located right up there and as you can see there's not a ton of room to work we have the radiator right here we have our sway bar right here we might have to disconnect the sway bar and lower it down we'll see but we will have to disconnect the belt we'll probably have to pull the pulley off and then hopefully we have enough space to remove the pump but before we do any of that there is a high likelihood we're gonna make a mess power steering fluid usually gets everywhere so what i like to do is i like to get 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 to drain as much fluid out of the reservoir as we can and all you need is something simple like a turkey baster to pull the fluid out so let's get this cap off and suck the fluid right out of the reservoir and in this case i have a little cup on the side of the reservoir to collect all the old fluid the more fluid we could get out now the less fluid there will be later on to leak out and make a huge mess which is why i always do this first perfect so that's exactly what we want we removed a bunch of fluid and let's get the lid back on there and while we're up here we're gonna have to remove this reservoir so we might as well disconnect the air box so that we could easily get to it to do that there are two bolts right here so loosen up the first bolt good that's one and then loosen up the second one good so with those two bolts removed now we can remove the mass airflow sensor from our air box on the side here you can see right there is a tab we could pop off with our finger and pop off the tab on the other side as well and then the mass airflow sensor could be removed so with our mass airflow sensor removed normally there would be a couple of fasteners those plastic clips that hold this piece in right here but this is loose and ready to go there are no fasteners there so now we can remove the air box by giving it a little wiggle and pulling it out like so and with all that removed we have plenty of room to get to our reservoir now the reservoir has two hoses connected to it we have a cooler hose that runs this way towards the front of the car and we have a feeder hose that goes to the power steering pump under the car before we remove anything here 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 get this pulley off first so we're going to loosen the bolts as the belt is attached so this doesn't spin then we're going to take our belt off then we'll take the pulley off and there's two lines we have a high pressure line over here and then we have a low pressure line in the back and then it's held in by three bolts that's all there is to it so the first thing to do is break all three of these pulley bolts loose while the belt is still around the pulley which is going to help prevent that pulley from just spinning as we loosen these bolts now we need to remove the belt tension and this car uses a t50 torx for the tensioner so get your ratchet on the tensioner pulley and turn clockwise to remove the belt tension and now we can slide the belt off the pulley like so now there's no reason to remove the entire belt from the engine so let's tuck it out of the way so it's easy to install later and finally let's finish removing the three bolts holding that power steering pulley in okay so with all three bolts removed hopefully this pulley will just pop right off and of course it won't because it's not going to come off without a fight so you want to be careful because this pulley is actually made of plastic most of the time they're made of metal but this one has to be made of something that we could easily break and ah this is definitely not coming off without a fight and talk about easily breaking you see that right there that is a piece of chipped pulley so we are gonna have to there's some more damage right there we're gonna have to replace this pulley anyway but let's just say your pulley's in good shape you want to be careful not to damage it what you're going to do is get a pry bar under the pulley and then you're going to lightly pry it outwards so i'm prying with my screwdriver just outwards a little bit and then i'm going to rotate this and pry it outwards a little bit rotate it and you're just going to repeat that until this pops off which this is not popping off i might have to break it right here let's see and there you go so don't really 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 on here rust welded this and even if we did get it off you can see there's some cracks on here so this is definitely going to have to get replaced but there you go so we have access to our pump and now we could remove it and with the pulley removed we don't want to undo the bolts to the pump just yet there's a bolt there there's a bolt there and then there's a bolt back there before we unbolt it we need to keep it bolted in so we can loosen these power steering lines so grab a wrench if you have a flare nut wrench that would fit in here that would be perfect i don't i only have a regular wrench and this doesn't fit in there up it does but there's not enough room that's all the room we have until we hit the sway bar which is right there so we're not going to be able to turn this with this wrench and as always if you have the right tools it makes your job that much easier i actually never use this set i have a set of flare nut crows foot wrenches we need a 17 millimeter and this is going to make it a lot easier to get that fastener loose so flare nut wrenches are designed to slide right over the power steering line and then you can get it onto the nut like that and then connect the square end of your ratchet to it and with a little bit of torque all right and that nut is loose so now we can remove it the rest of the way then we can pop the line out of the pump and have a catch can ready because there's going to be a little bit of residual fluid in the pump and you can see we have almost no fluid left which is why it's important to first drain the reservoir way less fluid means way less of a mess all right so with our high pressure line removed now we need to get the low pressure line off and this line has a one time use crimp on hose connector so get a flathead screwdriver in there and break that crimp connector open then we can push the hose off the power steering pump like so and finally with all the hoses off we could remove the pump now at the front here there are two bolts that need to be removed to loosen this first one up good and then break the second one free and loosen that all the way good so now with both of these bolts removed from the front of the bracket we have one more bolt holding in this pump at the back of the pump so if we go around to this side right next to the tie rod there's a gap where we could access that last bolt right there so we're gonna need a long extension to get to this bolt and feed that extension in through there now we just need to get it onto the bolt head and break it loose beautiful then we can unscrew it the rest of the way and with that bolt out our pump is loose and we should be able to remove it right in this gap like that perfect so out with the old and in with the new now you can see the new pump does not have this bracket on here in the front and in the back so we're gonna have to take the bracket off of this and put it on there and that's all we need to do with the pump and then for the pulley this is just a cheap plastic pulley that got cracked there's no way we could reuse this so i got a new aluminum one it's a little bit heavier but it won't get damaged it won't crack easily and it's a lot more durable so let's swap over the bracket from the old pump to the new one and we could start here at the front by breaking loose the three fasteners and removing them all the way and then keeping them in the same orientation swap it directly over to the new pump so we know it's installed in the correct direction like that now before screwing this in add some medium strength thread locker to the fasteners to prevent vibrations from loosening them up hand tighten all three fasteners and torque them down to spec in this case 16 foot-pounds good now we can remove the rear bracket from the pump so break both bolts free and then loosen them all the way up now we can transfer this to the new pump but first remember to add your medium shrink thread locker to the threads then orient the bracket properly onto the rear of the new pump hand tighten those bolts in and torque them down to 16 foot pounds and as always anytime you install new parts i always like to make sure they are correct so just give it a quick look make sure it looks identical and this does all the bolt holes line up where the hoses go all line up and this is the same exact size plus the brackets fit just right so we're good to go same thing with our new pulley very important although this is plastic this is aluminum we want to make sure they are the same exact size the same exact number of ribs and these two are identical so that is perfect and this fits right on our pump so we are good to go here and real quick here's the old pump let's open it up and see if we could tell where it failed and would you look at that right there is a chunk of metal that broke off and is seizing up this pump and isn't allowing it to spin and if we remove the part that does the pumping check it out the shaft that connects the pulley to the pump is sheared off that's supposed to be connected right there and then when the pulley spins the shaft is supposed to spin the pump but not anymore now that's pretty cool to see how this pump failed so let's replace it now before we go and install our brand new pump we don't want any of the old fluid to get in the new pump and contaminate it so let's replace the old reservoir and to do that is really simple there's one bolt right here which clamps this reservoir in and once you remove that you can pull the reservoir out now there's two hoses here this hose is disconnected at the power steering pump we don't have to worry about disconnecting it here this hose though is connected right here which goes into a cooler and we do need to disconnect this right down here and when we disconnect the line we don't want to get any power steering fluid into the alternator so i'm going to use some aluminum foil to protect the alternator and catch any extra fluid that might drip out now let's break open the crimped hose clamp and remove it good and don't worry this is going to get replaced with a screw-on hose clamp now we could remove this hose and the trick to removing hoses that are stuck on there good is to twist the hose to break it loose you hear that snap 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 then finally let's loosen the reservoir clamp bolt and once that's loose we can pull the reservoir right out like so so out with the old and broken you can hear that filter in there is loose and in with the new and that's good to go now you can see we have a hose that we removed that connects to the power steering pump i'm gonna reinstall a new hose that came with the kit right on this one and we're just gonna make sure we have the hose in the correct spot so it's gonna go on this right here and then we'll take our new hose with the hose clamp and we will slide it right on just like that now any time you tighten down a hose clamp onto a plastic part like this just snug it up don't over tighten it because you could crack that plastic nipple that it slides over with that snugged up pull on it to make sure it won't come off and that's not going anywhere so now we can feed the hose down to where the new pump will be installed then we can get the reservoir into the holder like that and then we could snug up the bolt clamping in the reservoir good and finally don't forget the hose clamp on the cooler line then we can connect it to the reservoir and tighten down the hose clamp until it's snug perfect and that's not coming off beautiful so our brand new reservoir is in there our two hoses are connected now there's one last set of hoses that we need to replace and that's these right here the high pressure lines so let's go under the car and replace them here's our rotted old line that is barely hanging on and here is our nice new line so the first thing we're gonna have to do is disconnect this right here so let's loosen up this bolt 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 break the bolt loose from the steering rack and unscrew it the rest of the way by hand and then carefully remove the line and make sure you don't forget to remove the crush washer that's at the steering rack because we don't want to double up on these crush washers when we go to install the new one good so out with the old and in with the new first we want to get the mounting bracket tightened down to hold the line in place and with that bolted in now we can bolt in the other side at the power steering rack now you want to grab your banjo bolt that we removed before and make sure you remove the old crush washer from this bolt and replace it with a nice new crush washer that came with the kit then put the bolt through the line and then we need to add one more crush washer to the other side of the bolt it sandwiches our new 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 hand tightened all the way torque it down to 26 foot pounds now this torque is important to compress the crush washers to prevent any leaks all right so now let's install the new power steering pump so just get it in place like that and then grab a fastener which i already put thread locker on and hand tighten it in there same with the other fastener hand tighten it in then torque both of these down to 16 foot pounds that's one and that's the other now get that last bolt onto the long extension and we're gonna feed that all the way back behind the pump we have to get that bolt threaded in there good and then we could torque it down as well all right so with all three bolts holding the pump in now we can connect the two lines to the power steering pump so let's start by getting the low pressure line attached and i'm doing this from above so it's just by feel i can't see and i think right there is where i need to connect it perfect so slide that on there until the hose bottoms out against the end of the fitting and then all we need to do is tighten the hose clamp down so it's snug like that 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 pinch when we go and install it then we can push the line into the pump and thread that nut into the pump by hand until it won't tighten anymore now we can slide the crow's foot wrench over the nut and this needs to be tightened down to 25 foot pounds good perfect with that torque down we are almost done we're gonna get our pulley on get the belt on fill it up with power steering fluid bleed it and let's see if it works so let's get our pulley onto the pump and i already put medium strength thread locker on each bolt so hand tighten them down and then get the other one in that's two and finally that's three now we can get the ratchet onto the belt tensioner and loosen that belt tension like that and then we can slip the belt over the power steering pulley and it's a tight fit but get it on there just like that and then finally we could torque down all three of our pulley bolts to 16 foot pounds all right so with our power steering pump installed we have one thing left to install and that's our air box so let's get it in place like so pop that mass airflow sensor in then we have these two bolts that we need to tighten down until snug and finally snap the mass airflow sensor back in on both sides and with the mass airflow sensor secured now we have one thing left to do and that is fill up our power steering system now it's very important that you use the correct fluid when filling your power steering system you just did all this work on fixing this you don't want to mess it up so check your owner's manual make sure you're using the correct fluid in this case we're using full synthetic and right on the label it says it's made for bmws so it has all the additives we need to keep this system running good so let's unscrew the reservoir cap and get some brand 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 you're going fast it takes a lot of effort to steer okay so two 12-ounce bottles later we are filled up to the brim and you can see i purposely over-filled it because once we turn the car on our new pump is gonna suck all this fluid into the system and we don't want it to run dry all right so now we're gonna bleed the power steering system and in order to do that we're gonna start the car and turn the steering wheel from lock to lock so let's start her up and then all we need to do is turn the steering wheel all the way to lock in one direction and then go back the other way to lock in the other direction let me show you now in the beginning this is going to be a little tough to do because there is no power steering fluid in the line so we're literally not using power steering even though the pump is brand new what we're trying to do is force that power steering fluid into the lines into the pump and into the power steering rack so that's all the way to lock you're gonna hold it there for about a second or two and then we're gonna go back in the other direction and again all the way to lock in the other direction forcing that air out and pushing the brand new fluid in there and we should be able to do this in about five turns and get this power steering pump nice and light but right now it's definitely tough okay and that's locking the other direction and then go back oh man this is definitely not easy to do but it's definitely getting lighter oh there we go baby all right so man that is a workout but that is what i'm talking about look at this this is perfect so now we have forced most of the air out you can still hear the power steering pump is a little noisy but we're forcing the air out we're getting new fluid in and that's all there is to it so bring it back and forth from lock to lock again about five times or until you hear that power steering pump quiet down and the steering is nice and soft and we're done that's it so now what we're going to do is we're going to go check the power steering fluid reservoir we're going to top it off and then we're going to go for a ride we're good to go and you can see all the fluid was sucked into the pump and power steering lines which is good so let's fill her up and it looks like we're gonna need almost the whole bottle so in total we used three 12-ounce bottles to do this job good now tighten the cap and then remove it to check the fluid level and don't worry if it's frothy like that that's just the new fluid getting churned up by the pump since there's a lot of air in there it'll bubble out over time and as you can see we are filled all the way up so we're good to go and now that it's not making any more noise and it's not taking any more fluid let's go under the car and check for leaks just do a quick inspection and look for any drips and everything looks good and the fittings at the pump are drip free as well so we are good to go so that's all there is to it you just learned how to replace your power steering pump now go take your car for a nice long test drive and enjoy your new power steering all right and back from the test drive that steering is smooth as butter it is effortless and we're no longer getting a workout every time we go and drive the car so that's exactly what you want now if you have a bunch of left over dirty fluid you could recycle this at your local recycle center you could bring it to some parts stores and some mechanic shops they'll recycle it for you and you can see why i recommended using one of these pieces of cardboard you're gonna spill stuff it's gonna get a little bit dirty and that makes cleanup nice and easy so there you go that's everything you needed to know on how to replace a power steering pump reservoir and power steering lines in your car or truck it is that simple and now you know how to do it so hopefully the video was helpful if it was remember to give it a thumbs up if you're not a subscriber consider hitting that subscribe button and as always all the tools and products i used in this video are linked in the description

Channel: ChrisFix

Views: 3,532,542

Keywords: ChrisFix, power steering, chrisfix power steering, power steering noise, hard to steer, power steering pump, power steering pump replacement, replace power steering pump, replace power steering, how to replace a power steering pump, chris fix, how to replace power steering pump, power steering pump noise, e46 power steering pump replacement, how to change power steering pump, power steering leak, chrisfix power steering pump, how to fix power steering, steering pump

Id: 04iDF3I6dTo

Length: 24min 38sec (1478 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021