Power steering pump yarn. (long-ish)

[rob hod]

    Those listers with nothing better to ponder may have noticed me asking a
few questions about PS pumps for the type $$
    over the last month or two. It started weeping around the caps a while
back and steadily got worse. Originally I thought about just doing the
seals, but as there was a fair amount of bearing noise as well I decided to
'do the right thing' and go for a recon unit.

So a couple of weeks back I splashed on a recon unit and a bomb too. All
fitted up well but ..... the 'new' pump had had little dust caps fitted over
the banjo bolt holes and then been sprayed black. So I had to carefully
clean all the overspray from the mating faces before fitting up the hoses.
It also had a 'Warrantee Void if removed' sticker on it which was already
peeling and looked like it would go about a week before it fell off of its
own accord. Worse was to follow. On starting up I noticed the new pump was
no quieter than the old one and had a tiny weep from exactly the same cap!
grrrrrrr.

I phoned the supplier next day and they agreed to replace the unit with a
proper new ZF unit. I collected it a few days later and fitted it. First
good sign was that it had decent size dust caps, so that although also
sprayed black I didn't have to clean the mating surfaces. So far this one
seems good. Its quiet and doesn't leak. Its been on a week.

The supplier were good about getting me another unit, didn't charge me the
difference  for a new unit and threw in a couple of things for my trouble,
so I'm not too unhappy, but I really have doubts about whoever they use for
those recon units.

    Anyway thats been my experience with PS pumps, seems like there's no
shortcuts with 'em. Thanks to all those who responded to my various
questions over the last while.


rob