Replacing the seal in your ZF power steering pump It's really pretty simple, and much easier than replacing the whole pump. This has been discussed before, but I thought I would do a DIY with pictures and try to clarify some facts. First off, you can do this without removing the entire pump. Loosen up the 3 bolts that attach the pulley to the pump with the serpentine belt still on the engine. Remove the belt and take off the pulley. Then loosen and remove the 6 bolts holding the nose of the pump on to the body of the pump. You can suck out the fluid from the reservoir, but your still going to have quite a bit of fluid coming out of the pump, so put something under that area to catch it! Once the bolts are out, the nose of the pump will slide right out. Put it on the bench and start your tear-down. On a side note, according to EPC and everything I could find on the internet there is no kit available for my pump. That is not true! I bought this kit from AutohausAZ, which supposedly only fits older model pumps but had everything I needed plus a couple I don't. Part 0004604561 Which is equivalent to this MB part 000 460 47 80 From what I've seen, I think that all the ZF pumps are about the same as far as seals go. The only thing they didn't include was a new C clip, which is one thing you may end up needing! The tear-down is just pulling parts off until you get to the C clip. Make sure you notice the orientation of the parts, though! I thought I did, but had to reverse engineer some things, like the pins that hold the plate around the impeller. The impeller blades have a curved edge that faces out, by the way. If you took good pictures of your disassembly and didn't destroy your C clip, putting it all back together is really pretty simple. Some people were worried that the impeller blades would fall out while putting the pump back into the body on the car, but I don't see how that would be an issue if you put it back together correctly and simply slide it back in reasonably carefully. If you hold it upside down and beat on it, then yes, it might well fall apart. Which is why you shouldn't do that! Sequence the bolts down, tighten them to about 35Nm, put the pulley back on and the belt and re-tighten those bolts to 30Nm and fill with fluid. You're done, and so am I. I have to wait for new radiator to show up on Tuesday to test it, but as Tracy would say; what could go wrong? Starting from scratch here- just saw this thread. Looks like a miracle to me. My '98 SL500 pump is leaking badly. I did get a temp fix with stop leak, which is the wrong basic fluid for MB but I had to do something. Can someone give me a refresher? I believe the leak is through the front shaft seal but the things I have read here seem to not mention that seal. There is mention of a filter in the reservoir. If so, how does it come off and how do you find a replacement. The meager documentation I have refers to high and low pressure hoses. How would I check those, or should I worry? There is reference to a snap ring. Is it liable to fly away or get bent? I have snap ring pliers around here somewhere, but have not fully unpacked the shop since moving here 7 years ago! Should I expect the non-removal method to work for me? I was close to buying a rebuilt pump out of stock much of the time and paying my indie to install it. If the pump works fine and the only known leak is the front shaft, maybe I can just replace that seal and not do a full rebuild. Is it just an O-ring? They carry everything, or can get anything. Cookie and Data Use Consent We use cookies to improve your experience on this website and so that ads you see online can be tailored to your online browsing interests. We use data about you for a number of purposes explained in the links below. By continuing to browse our site you agree to our use of data and cookies.
