I have a 1996 Audi a4 quattro with the 2.8l. I ordered in a new power steering pump since the old one is spraying fluid everywhere. The new pump sidnt come with a pulley. Well I'm now trying to replace the pump but need to remove the pulley first. How do I get the pulley off the shaft?!?! There isn't enough shaft sticking out for a regular pulley puller to fit. Is there a specific type of puller for this car?

 

Well, nevermind. I sprayed some PB blaster on it and it came off real nice. I can't believe i didn't think of that first

 

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Ok, next question regarding the power steering pump. What is this brass piece and how do I remove it? It's in the way to get at a bolt I need to remove.

 

I can't see the photo, what brass piece? Once you get the pulley off, there should be 3 bolts connecting the pump to the rest of the car that can be removed without anything else

 

There's three 6mm allen bolts holding the bracket onto the front of the engine. Get those (along with the 2 lines) and it'll pull straight off. The two to the right side and back are obvious, the one underneath - not so much but easy once you know where to look. The two identical 10mm allen head bolts underneath are NOT holding the tray in, as I found out.

 

There is a brass "L" shaped piece above the driver side of the back 2 bolts. I started rounding out the hex bolt so I figured I had to remove the brass piece. I PB blaster the bolt then hammered the bit into the bolt. That did the trick. I'm installing the new pump now. I poured a little fluid into the top hole where the large banjo bolt went and turned the pulley a bunch of times. I read somewhere I was supposed to do that. Not sure if it was needed or not but I got some fluid into the pump so it doesn't run dry at first. Any other tips as I "hopefully" finish this project up?

 

If you haven't yet, get both front wheels off the ground.

Next thing, once everything is back in place, and you're SURE (to the best of your knowledge) there aren't any air leaks, is to fill the lines leading up to the pump and reservoir with fluid. This isn't super easy because they travel wait down and back up. This will keep any air from going into the system and push any you have in there already, out.

Then fill the reservoir 3/4 full to full then turn the wheels lock-to-lock a bunch of times (30?) to start the flow. Then turn the engine on for a 10 seconds while turning lock-to-lock a few times. Make sure to keep your reservoir full and keep going (like brake fluid) by turning it lock-to-lock with the engine off, then turn it on for a few seconds, etc. Eventually it'll stop sucking down liquid and stop spewing air back into your reservoir.

This is my method but it's not perfect: My theory here is to keep the level of the fluid in the reservoir ABOVE the pump so any air in the pump gets pushed through. On the 1.8t's the pump is way below the reservoir so swapping pumps is never an issue at all, which is why if you search for issues, they never have any. With our 2.8s the pumps are at the same level as the reservoir so if there's any air inside, it'll get caught there and you'll be fighting it for hours. The main drawback to this method is you'll spill a lot of fluid out of the reservoir. Have a rag, or multiple, surrounding the reservoir so when it spills out, it doesn't get over everything.

Here's me doing it the wrong way (not enough fluid in lines/reservoir so air stayed trapped inside). Since I ran it so long with air inside, the pump failed in less than a year. I returned, then swapped the pump with the method I wrote here and it took about 10 minutes to get it working correctly, albeit with a decent amount of spillage of PS fluid on my rags.

power steering bleed woes

 

Thanks! I decided to flush the fluid anyways cause the old was was pretty dark. I jacked up the car and unhooked the return line then just turned the wheel a bunch of times to discharge the old oil. I then filled it back up as a buddy turned the wheel for me. Everything seems to be golden.....for now.