PS line replacement post mortem and lessons learned. - Saab 9-5 Bulletin Board - Saabnet.com
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PS line replacement post mortem and lessons learned.
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Posted by dchmiele1992 [Email] (more from dchmiele1992) on Wed, 4 Jan 2017 05:38:33 Share Post by Email
In Reply to: Power steering line replacement? how to get at banjo bolt?, dchmiele1992, Fri, 30 Dec 2016 17:32:57
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Well, thank you to anyone that chimed in on my request.
I am now one of those people that "have done this job" It wasn't pretty, I have to say.
So here is a quick summary of my post-mortem impressions:
- There are some jobs you can do by just kind of feeling your way around. This is not one of them. You need the WIS (or some other manual) instructions and unless you know every fastener on the underside of this car by sight, you need the drawings from the WIS too.
- Lots of tough & tight spaces, gear wrenches are your friend. Almost all metric, although it seems like the nuts connecting the exhaust outlet to the turbo were 1/2" as the retaining bolt on the PS pump also appears to be.
- Specialty tools.
The banjo bolt on the back side of steering rack where the PS line attaches is 22mm. A 22mm gear wrench would have been extra handy (but expensive and not common) so I managed to grind down a cheap taiwanese 22mm socket that I had so that it was the same depth as the banjo bolt head. When the subframe was dropped, there was just enough space to get the socket on the head and turn it with the wrench.
The bolts for dropping the subframe were 20 mm. They are way up in the front wheel well on each side and I couldn't generate enough torque to turn them with just a regular socket. But with a 6" extension, I was able to get a 3' breaker bar on the wrench and it turned out just fine.
The clamp that holds the PS line firm on the backside of the steering rack requires a gear wrench to reach it. 10mm I believe. Also, the actual end of the gear wrench cannot be that big around, or it will not clear the clamp itself. I had one craftsman gear wrench that would not fit, but my Ace gear wrench with the smaller end worked fine.

- The subframe has to drop for this job, just so that you can actually reach the bolts on the back side of the steering rack. In the WIS instructions, it tells you to remove the bolt that links the steering gear to the steering wheel. Hint: This is inside of the car just behind the gas pedal. Took me a while to figure this out, but if you pull one piece of carpet back, its right there. Note that it says to remove this bolt. I merely loosened it, because I am always nervous about removing hard to reach bolts if I dont have to, since you dont always know if the nut is captive or not. It turns out that the steering wheel and steering gear will not completely separate if you do not do this. This will also keep the subframe from dropping completely, which makes it impossible to reach the bolts and is very aggravating. Do not repeat this mistake. Just remove this bolt. its the only one you mess with that is inside the car cabin for this job.
- After you remove the rear portion of the PS line, WIS tells you to thread it back in from the back. I found that starting it in from the top (passenger side near the fire wall) and threading the back to the rear portion of the steering rack and the front running up toward the PS pump was the way to go. This is possible because the rear PS line has a flexible section (the section that leaks BTW) that needs to be bent to a 180 up and over the top of the steering rack and back down.
- Keep in mind that this thing comes in two pieces. It is unlikely that you will be able to replace either just the front or back halves because the fitting (union) that joins the two is very unlikely to be the same as your existing one. Mine was the "Genuine saab" model from EEuroparts and it had the male/female fittings reversed between the front and back halves (and the fittings were not the same size). Its an all or nothing job.
- The hex fitting that connects the line to the PS pump is not fun. Its not too bad to take off, but getting it back on is not a good time. Mine was an anodized Al nut going into an Al housing on the pump, which is a recipe for x-threading. Not only that, but the nut is on the end of a very stiff rubber hose and you are blindly shoving it into the PS pump housing and trying to get it to thread. After some significant suffering, I took out the passenger side headlight assembly (instructions found on this site and summarized below) so that I could get at it from the front and see what I was doing. This also makes access to the retaining bolt much better. The PS line screws into the the PS pump with a hex nut, but also has a hook shaped flange that clamps onto the body of the pump with a retaining bolt to secure it. Without taking the headlight assembly off, the only way to get to this retaining bolt is with a 3" socket extension through the holes in the pump pulley (hoping it already lines up right, otherwise you have to release the tension on the accessory drive belt and rotate the pulley to the right location). The headlight comes off easily. The turn signal portion snaps onto the headlight assembly with a big white tab. If you push this tab down and pry the signal light forward, it slides right out. Then the headlight is secured by two 10mm bolts and a TORX screw on top. The torx screw is easy to see. One 10mm bolt is exposed when you remove the signal light. The other is exposed by prying off the small grille between the light and the main grille. Once you disconnect the power to the headlight and signal assemblies, you can take them both out easily.
Good Luck. I learned a lot about my car on this one. I am not sure it was worth giving up two days of aggravation during my X-mas vacation to do it myself, but I do take some small satisfaction in having done it myself. But I did learn a few hard lessons. Hopefully you will not repeat my mistakes if you do this yourself. Thanks everyone on this board for your help over the years.

posted by 136.237.6...


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