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Thread: How to reassemble the power steering pump lower valve assembly?

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Posts: 1-10 of 26
2014-08-13 23:23:00
#1
How to reassemble the power steering pump lower valve assembly?
Crank crank snap! Fuck.


Crank crank sproooonnnggg! Fuck.


Yummm


Wrench wrench


Sooooo.....where did this come from and how do I reattach it? I know it goes between the banjo bolt and the power steering....but....which way? Or...am I fucked?
Last edited by BenFenner on 2015-07-16 at 13-59-08. Reason: Title change before moving to info librabry.
2014-08-13 23:30:47
#2
Re: WTF: a photo journey.
Another photo of the carnage. See the banjo bolt bit? That whole contraption kept the springy bit inside the power steering pump. I'm a bit concerned that there may have been a c clip that retains the springy bit inside because there's a notch on the tip of the shaft there. Just the tip?

2014-08-14 09:19:22
#3
Is that the line that goes to the pump? If so I have that and an extra pump if you need it.
2014-08-14 13:27:01
#4
I did the exact same thing when I removed my power steering line once. The provision on the pump came with it, and the valve + spring came out.

I assembled it backwards and physically destroyed my power steering pump. It also caused a permanent fluid by-pass in the pump which almost melted the reservoir due to churning the fluid so much.


There are pics of the journey in my build thread (Link). The FSM (of which you'll find a picture in the previously linked post) shows the correct order of re-assembly of all the bits. You'll know if you're missing any by studying it closely. There is no c-clip, just spring and valve.




Here, I'll save you the time and post that update here.

Originally Posted by BenFenner
Power steering pump problem and fix

Facebook album permalink (in case the images don't show up in the future).

You will recall this from one of my posts about swapping in the 5th engine:

Originally Posted by BenFenner
Picture of the pulley side of the engine showing passenger side halfshaft removed. You can see I've drained the power steering fluid and if you look closely you'll see the pressure relief valve and spring from inside the power steering pump that came loose by accident while I was removing the pressure side of the power steering line. I don't realize it now, but that will cause serious issues for me later.



So what happened was... I was removing the lower side of the high pressure power steering hose. When I loosened the banjo bolt it never got loose. It stayed hard to turn the entire time I was undoing it. Once the banjo bolt got free from the power steering pump I saw what had happened. The banjo bolt, power steering hose, and the outlet provision on the power steering pump that the banjo bolt screws into all came loose from the power steering pump in one piece. I basically forgot to hold the power steering pump outlet provision steady with a wrench, and it came free instead of the banjo bolt.

Take a look at this picture from the FSM and you'll see what I mean. I was loosening piece #13 (the banjo bolt) but it was tightened so well into piece #10 (the outlet provision) that when I loosened it, piece #10 was loosening instead and piece #12 obviously came with it.


So with the outlet provision removed, the pressure control valve (piece #8) and spring (piece #7) just fell out into the drain pan. You can see them if you look closely in the picture I quoted above.

Here is the banjo bolt and the outlet provision in the drain pan separated from the power steering hose.


Here is a shot of the nice aluminum power steering pump with the outlet provision removed. You can see the power steering hose dangling there in the foreground too.


The problem is that when it came time to assemble the motor this next time around instead of consulting the FSM I just guessed at which way to put the valve and spring back into the power steering pump. I looked at things for a bit and decided that the valve should go in first. I had no idea which way it should go in. It will go in both ways, so I took a look at which way it would fit better and put it in that way. It fit so well in there and looked like it belonged. It could have easily have been in "backwards". I don't know. It doesn't matter really if you keep reading.

Next I put the spring in, put the outlet provision back on, and buttoned everything up. After driving the car around for some time those next couple days I noticed a lot of whining from the power steering pump and I'd lost most of my power steering.

I checked the fluid level and it was normal, but the reservoir was extremely hot. The fluid inside was so hot, I'm surprised the plastic reservoir hadn't melted already. I realized pretty quickly that I'd obviously guessed wrong about the order of installation of the pressure control valve and the spring. If you'd been paying attention to the picture from the FSM I posted you'd have come to the same conclusion.

So, I went and looked up the power steering pump section of the FSM and found out the order of installation. I also looked up how power steering pumps worked and found out why the fluid was so hot. The pressure valve is used to recirculate varying amounts of the fluid back to the pump intake to limit the pressure output of the pump. With the valve and spring installed backwards, the pump was always recirculating. This meant I got low or no pressure from the pump and the fluid spent all of it's time thrashing around in the pump getting heated in the process. Because I wasn't careful installing things and didn't understand what I was doing, I messed up the power steering pump.

I still wasn't 100% sure I'd installed things backwards, so I took the power steering stuff apart and looked inside and saw that I had, in fact, fucked it up. The spring came out easily enough, but the pressure valve was stuck inside the pump. It was stuck in there so well, I spent all day and night trying to get the valve out without ruining anything. Eventually I gave up and realized I just needed a new pump. This one was fucked.

In a last ditch effort to get the valve out I fashioned up some crazy tools and tried to twist it out and ended up tearing up the valve, the threads of the power steering pump housing and actually managed to unscrew the top of the valve which caused more springs and ball valves to fall out.

Here is a picture of the pump I took early on where you can see the spring still inside.


Once I got the spring out, the valve was still in there and I messed up the threads of the housing that you can see there in good condition in the picture above.

After all that I just took the power steering pump off the engine and ripped the valve out to satisfy my own sense of "accomplishment".

I still had a cast iron power steering pump left over from one of my other engine swaps, so I installed that sucker the next day and everything was peachy keen. I'm pretty upset that I screwed up such an expensive part, and I wish I still had an aluminum one on my car, but those are the ropes.

Stupid fucking mistake.
Last edited by BenFenner on 2015-07-12 at 12-55-29.
2014-08-16 14:44:30
#5
Now hopefully we can learn from the mistake and move forward, good luck and please update @canx2k
2014-08-17 02:40:25
#6
Will do. Picked up my old build your own ps up hose thread in the how to, then bought a 1600 to part out instead
2014-08-17 02:40:56
#7
The ps hp hose looks the same. Wonder if the ps pump is too
2014-08-17 02:46:07
#8
Can't believe no one has yet recommended removing entire power steering system.
2014-08-17 08:11:13
#9
Originally Posted by BenFenner
Here is a shot of the nice aluminum power steering pump with the outlet provision removed.


what engines come with the aluminum pump?
Last edited by BenFenner on 2014-08-17 at 16-27-57. Reason: Clean up huge quote.
2014-08-17 16:28:41
#10
I'm not entirely sure. One of the 1999 G20 motors I bought came with one I think. P12 engines probably have them, maybe others... I bet @Andreas Miko knows more.
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