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1998 Saab 9000 CSE 5 speed 217,000 miles
Failure was obvious after the reservoir would not hold fluid, power steering died, and there was a loud, grinding/rattling noise. Early warning noise was evident at startup for about a year before catastrophic failure...I did not know what the noise was, but in retrospect it must have been the bearings. The noise was evident for 1-2 seconds immediately after startup, then disappeared. When the catastrophic failure occurred, it happened over a period of a few days, starting with the familiar "groaning" of the steering system, loss of fluid from the reservoir, the observed fluid dripping onto passenger front wheel. Even after catastrophic failure I was still able to drive the car, although the noise was horrendous and the steering was very heavy.
Procedure:
1)Remove passenger roadwheel: Loosen lug nuts. Jack car, remove roadwheel, place jacktstand under control arm. Make sure the car is stable, use chocks if you have them. You are going to be wrenching heavily in this area.
2)Remove the wheel-well trim piece. This is attached using many small (8mm) nuts. My favorite tool for this job is a ratcheted hand wrench, but you can also use a standard ratchet wrench. Once you have all the nuts of, gently maneuver the trim piece out. At this point you will probably be showered with rust, and the metal sleeves that are embedded in the body of the car may also come out...oh well. Project for another time.
3)Remove the front section of the wheel-well liner. There are several small bolts that hold this piece in, one up above the wheel, one inboard from the wheel, and a few on the underneath of the car. I did not need to remove the rear section of the wheel-well liner. Once the bolts are out, you still need to do some maneuvering to get this big piece of plastic out. It is a tight fit, and also goes back together with a bit of a fight. Once it is out, you have access to the serpentine belt, power steering pump, alternator, etc. You will also see your windshield washer reservoir etc.
4)Loosen and remove serpentine belt. I have a serpentine belt tool I got from Sears, works perfectly, but I have read that you can also do it with improvised tools (perhaps a breaker bar, or ratchet wrench with pipe extender? Not sure.). The key is you need a long handle to push the bolt-head on the idler pulley. The idler pulley is the one that is attached to the thing resembling a shock absorber. Once you push the idler pulley to compress the shock absorber, the serpentine belt will be slack and you can slip it off any one of the pulleys. You do not need to remove it further. One good tip I saw was to take a picture of the routing of the belt so you know how to put it back together...I think there is a routing diagram in the owners manual also.
5)Remove tubes from PS pump and drain fluids (if any fluid remains in the reservoir!). This was the hardest part for me. The high pressure fitting on the bottom of the PS pump has a nut that is tight access, had to use an open-end wrench 1/4 turn at a time. Once it is loose its not hard to get off, just time-consuming and knuckle busting. The second hose is connected with a hose clamp, I found it easiest to use a ratchet wrench with a 1/4" bit. Pay attention to the orientation of the clamp for when you reinstall it.
6)Remove the two bolts that hold the PS pump into the engine. The bolts are straightforward, but a fair amount of force will be required to break them free. I used plenty of PB Blaster ahead of time, they came out without breaking. The bolts are accessed through the holes on the pulley! So you may find yourself fighting with the pulley to get it oriented properly with the wrench oriented properly using for example a deep-well socket and a short extender on the ratchet wrench...Once the bolts are out, you can remove the pump itself.
7)Remove the PS pump. The pump is wedged in pretty well, I needed to use a small hammer on the body of the pump (don't hit the pulley!) to get it to move a bit, then it should start wiggling and finally you can maneuver it out.
8)Notes and caveats: If you are using a new replacement pump, you will need to salvage the pulley from the old pump. Apparently there is a tool for that, I learned that places like AutoZone will lend you the tool if you buy the new pump from them. I do not know if you can use a gear puller for this job, it might be possible. Even if you get a direct replacement from a junkyard or parts car (like I did) hold on to the pulley-you might need it later!
Also, upon installation: I used plenty of grease to help get the replacement pump into position. This was not easy, getting the pump into the right spot so the bolts go into their correct spots takes a bit of doing. One key is to get the lower bolt in, leave it a bit loose, then rotate the pump upwards into its correct orientation so the upper bolt goes into its spot. As I said, this took a fair amount of doing for me, again using a small hammer to position the pump correctly.
Having disassembled it, you will find it straightforward to reattach the high pressure hose and the low pressure hose. During my disassembly I completely removed both hoses from the reservoir and the pump. On reassembly I forgot to use cable ties to secure the hoses to the upper motor mount, and subsequently smelled burning plastic. The insulation around the hoses came into contact with the (HOT) engine. So make sure to replace those cable ties, otherwise you could burn right through your ps fluid hoses! During my trouble shooting process, I had removed the reservoir, cleaned it and checked the filter. If you check the filter (located within the reservoir) look for any evidence of metal filings, which could migrate into the rack...I did not find any when I inspected my filter, and I ran the car with the pump "blown" for several days...
One final note about the serpentine belt: The bolt on the idler pulley that you use to compress the shock absorber is reverse-threaded. This is so you can push on it (pushing from the front of the car towards the cabin) without the bolt loosening. On my car, the bolt had been replaced with a normal-threaded bolt...an emergency job over Thanksgiving weekend far from home by an unknown shop...this caused me endless frustration during reassembly. I ended up by removing the idler pulley/shock absorber assembly from my parts car. At that point I realized why the unknown shop had replaced the bolt...the bolt on my parts car was frozen, I could not get it apart even on a bench with a vise...so I could not get the old serpentine belt out of the pulley. I ended up using the idler pulley/serpentine belt from my parts car. So now, if I have a problem with my serpentine belt I know I will have to replace that idler pulley also (since the serpentine belt is constrained withing that pulley. If I can't get the bolt out, I can't put a new serpentine belt on.).
Whew! Overall I did this job in one day, including disassembly of both cars, reassembly of one car, and the serpentine belt issues. Any questions, just ask!
posted by 68.189.24...
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