Replacing power steering pump ST205

I'll warn anyone now who wants to do this... it's a serious pain in the proverbial, massively. This is my step by step guide on how to do it - make sure you read it all first before you have at it.

- Jack your car up (always use axel stands and chock your car!), remove near side front wheel and front arch liner.

- Loosen the lower slider bolt (14mm) and let the pump fall vertical so the belt becomes slack (may need to be pulled vertical by hand if the top 14mm bolt is tight) and remove belt from pulley.

- Remove 2 vac lines from bottom.

- Remove upper feed pipe (from reservoir in the bay, left of your alternator when looking in).

- Remove high px banjo bolt (17mm).

- Remove top bolt to drop the unit down. Swing the unit backwards to gain better access to this one and use a ratcheting 14mm spanner.

- If you haven't had to remove the track rod arm then now is the time to do so - you can use a pitman arm puller here or two hammers to shock the ball joint out like this --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX7GVWcB-bg

- If you can get the vac line plastic pipes off (17mm spanner) then that's also a good idea so you avoid snapping the tips off.

- Remove any offending brass brackets you need to, these will either be 12mm or 14mm bolts.

- Time to make your knuckles bleed. Wriggle that perp out of there with the track rod arm held out the way. Full right hand lock may help you here too.

[IMG]http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g166/olsimo/IMG_2642.jpg[/IMG]

I had to send a 20 year old ferret up there at times when my fingers were too fat - always helpful to have someone help you out when working on your car. Notice here I had the drive shaft out the way, this helped me but you can get it out the way described above, just happened to be when I was doing other work on the car. Bear in mind that you will get ATF all over the place so put a drip pan down and have a spare litre to top it back up again once the job is complete. When you do fill it back up, run the engine and turn from lock to lock until all the air is out of the system and the level remains constant.

Good luck if you try this too!