Power Steering Pump teardown - Part Deux!

[Minidave]

This time it's Monty's turn.....

We got together at MiniDave's mini-garage last Sat and after about an hour of wrestling and cussing, the pump came out. I took it to work on Monday but didn't get to tear it down till yesterday, here's what I found.....

[davester]

Hey Dave, how's the P/S pump coming along?

[Minidave]

It's stalled for the moment, but I may get back to it tomorrow.....

I had a major breakdown at work and have been working non=stop - including all day Friday, Sat and Sun to get this machine back online. I think we got it sorted today, if it's still running smoothly tomorrow, I should have the pump back together by tomorrw eve.

[Minidave]

Pump is ready for install....PM sent.

[Minidave]

Well, another successful day at MiniDave's MiniGarage!

Today we re-installed the pump on Monty - and another shout out to SH944 for the Bently manuals - after fussing with it for about a half hour and unable to get it in place, we consulted the "book of Bentley, chapter 300, verse 20" and the instructions were revealed to us in all their glory. And it went right in!

A quick run down to Baron for the correct power steering fluid and Bob's yer uncle Annies your auntie we fired it up and it worked as smoothly as new!

On top of that Mark says the whine he used to hear at full lock is gone too!

So, for those of you following along at home, that's two succesful power steering pump repairs out of two attempts....... two MINI's motoring without "armstrong" steering again!

And the peasants rejoiced.......

[davester]

Fantastic !!!

[Minidave]

My son and I were driving down to Colroado Springs from Winter Park yesterday and somehow we wound up in the midst of massive road reconstruction on the Guanella pass, they had completely removed all the ashphalt and the rock filled washboard dirt road was so rough we did almost 10 miles at 10 mph! As soon as we hit pavement again he radio'd me that he thought he had a flat tire, as it was pulling right really hard. We got out and looked but the tires looked fine, plus the low tire warning lamp had not come on. We decided to carry on and about 100 yards further down the road he radio'd again to say it was his power steering that was gone. He guessed driving on the rough dirt road had masked the problem till he hit the pavement. We drove on about another 30 min back on smooth highway and the next time we stopped to choose directions, it was working again. His '04 MCS only has about 60K on it, so it seems a bit early for a rebuild, we're hoping somehow the fan got locked up by debris from the road and that once it cleared itself all was good again.

Otherwise there may be another PS pump repair in the near future!

Moral of the story - check that power steering cooling fan now and again, the arms you save may be your own!

[Mach5]

Haven't had a problem with the PS pump since leaving Co Sprgs. I had the car up the other day and looked @ the fan. It was a bit dusty but seemed functional. I didn't pull it to run a test.

Phx is very hot and no fun to work outside. If heat were the issue you'd think it'd fail here. But I don't tend to make a lot of low speed steering inputs like I would climbing a mtn dirt road, so the problem may not recur for some time.