Duncan Millar auto repair, bmw, e30, power steering, power steering delete, steering rack, z3 steering rack

Rolling Blockout – A “Proper” Tutorial on the Deletion of an M42 Power Steering System (Part Two)

Blockages are bad if you have high cholesterol or are the case-du-jour in an episode of House. M.D. Our blockage is good though because it means the RYE30 team, doctors’ Cameron, Thirteen, and Cuddy can move onto the next scene and remove the rest of the power steering system.

After shamelessly promoting our blog to the usual Facebook haunts we received some surprisingly constructive criticism on the installation of the PS block. Some suggested that it will be more trouble than it’s worth because of the reduced ability to respond to poor steering decisions or unforeseen road hazards. Another user suggested removing valving from the steering rack to free up the internals and make it almost as easy to wrestle as when it had power steering. But the weather has taken a turn for the worse (or at least that’s our excuse) and we won’t be effecting re-installations or modifications until the spring when we’d rather be racing than fixin’. So for now, we give you Part Two of the removal of the power steering system.

Step 1: Work Smart, not Dumb

Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar

If you’re as forward thinking as us, you still have the splash guard installed. But if you’re as masochistic as us, leave it installed while you try to remove these components. Since ours is basically ziptied into place, it would have been just as simple as removing it from the enslavement of the few 10mm nuts in the wheel wells that you still hopefully have.

Step 2: There’s Seems to be a Disconnect

  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar
  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar

Most of your fluid would have drained out when you disconnected the lines from the rack, but there will undoubtedly be some left in the pump when you disconnect the banjo fitting on the bottom (no need to disconnect the one you’ll see on the side of the pump). Give it a good crank with your 22mm and be ready with your drip pan. Once that’s free, you can noodle the reservoir out through the top of the engine bay.

Step 3: No Daddy, not the Belt

  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar
  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar
  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar
  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar

Next, you’ll de-tension the belt two ways. The likelihood is that your power steering system, like ours, has never been serviced. So even if you do start off by loosening the tensioner, it might need some persuasion before the pump swings loose of the belt. Loosen the nut and bolt that allow the pump to pivot on the upper oil pan to give it a little freedom. Then loosen both the locknut and the tensioner nut on the tensioner bracket since they are all going to be removed anyway. Use a prybar or a hammer to convince the pump to dislodge. Ideally, it won’t crash down onto your face like when you’re watching hentai late at night on your cell phone in your bed, but hold it in place with a free hand anyway. Pull the belt away from the crankshaft pulley and wiggle the pump out.

Step 4: Practice Safe Splashing

  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar

Reinstall the splashguard, but only after you notice that if you’d removed the pump first, you might have had a lot more space to install the power steering block and not need to part the rack from the subframe. Wipe up your frustrated tears with the same rag you use to soak up the power steering fluid dripping down from the steering rack and go have a cream soda.

Duncan Millar bmw, e30, m20, m42, motorsports, power steering, power steering delete, racing, road racing, z3 steering rack

Rolling Blockout – A Proper Tutorial on the Deletion of an M42 Power Steering System (Part One)

Losing weight can be hard. Dieting. Exercising. Gastricly bypass your power steering system to shed pounds by installing a steering rack block and chucking the remaining components. Trust us. We’re MDs. Which of course stands for “Mostly Dumb.”

Photos courtesy of Duncan Millar

Our power steering delete block comes from a California manufacturer and retailer of BMW performance parts. The Denny’s coupons we asked for in quid pro quo of a felicitous name-drop are as yet mysteriously missing from our racecar budget coffers, so you’ll have to hit your favorite search engine to find out who it’s from.

It’s design is so simple that you’ll undoubtedly something like “Pshshsh. I coulda made this.” But that doesn’t betray it’s cleverness as a product likely, largely capitalized on by the manufacturer. The bleeder is a simple hex-keyed set screw instead of a more expensive traditional bleeder screw. A single passageway that intersects the banjo bolt holes to allow flow means one long straight through pass in lieu of other more complicated methods of facilitating a bleed. If it’s CNC’d from a pile of bandsaw cut lengths of mid-grade aluminum then there’s little waste lost to that process and the process of rounding the corners and running the through-holes.

At $40 a pop (when they’re not on sale for $25) they’re likely piling mounds of cash into duffle-bags and shipping them to yours, truly as sponsorship dough as we speak. By the time it gets here, we should be done installing the block and onto the removal of the offending power steering components (which will be covered in Part Two).

Because the weather is officially “fucking awful” here in the Midwest, we pulled out the trusty tent once again to shield us from the light drizzle. “Rolling around on the ground” was brought to you by “Harbor Freight Creeper” which, surprisingly, is not the guy outside the store’s front door trying to sell you coupon books with sticky pages.

Step 1: Just Lemme Squeeze Past Ya There

Photos courtesy of Duncan Millar

In a previously unreleased episode, we installed a Z3 steering rack so your experience with gaining clearance to the banjo bolts might be different. All of the related components for the power steering system are on the driver’s side of the car. You’ll find the banjo bolts you need to disconnect right below the connection of the steering shaft u-joint and the rack.

Getting these two free can be difficult for two main reasons: The clearance between the smaller, higher, 19mm bolt and the motor mount, and the blockading of the 19mm bolt by the 22mm bolt. The simple solution to the blockage was to remove the 22mm first. You can reach this one with a 1/2″ ratchet and a 22mm socket. Get your catch pan ready, because you’re going to recieve everything in the lines and in the reservoir once you let it loose.

As for the 19mm, our solution was to disconnect the rack from the subframe by the two 15mm bolts and scootch it over enough to get our working man’s 19mm combination wrench into the gap and onto the head to bust it free. Be ready to give it a few concussive blows though to knock it free because your steering rack will no longer be rigidly attached to the subframe. While the remaining goo flows, get your block ready.

Step 2: Clean Practices Will Ensure a Tight Screw

Photos courtesy of Duncan Millar

Because you’re dealing with an aluminum casted rack housing and a sealing surface, you’ll want to be extra cleanly to avoid stripping when you tighten the banjo bolts and to ensure a tight seal. Wipe any grime away from the rack surface and do your best not to wipe much (but preferably any) icky stuff down into the passageways. Clear the threads of the banjo bolts of any debris with a cloth or a spray like brake cleaner. There’s no need to pre-assemble it as seen above (apart from the loosened bleeder screw), because this is where it gets tricky.

The angle of the rack makes it puzzling to keep the crush washers lined up as you place the assembly. We recommend locating the block on the rack using the 19mm bolt and crush washers, and hand-tightening it in so that’s it’s approximately square. Prep your 22mm bolt by placing one washer on it. Back up the 19mm enough to easily slide the free 22mm washer into the gap between the block and the rack. Lastly, use your 22mm banjo bolt (with installed washer) to fish for the washer as you wiggle everything into place until you’ve hand-tightened the 22mm banjo bolt.

Don’t worry about being able to reach the 19mm. We found during the process of re-installation that there was just enough clearance to tighten the 19mm while the 22mm was in place. Unfortunately, reaching the 19mm with a torque wrench is improbable (impossible in our case) so don’t strip it! Re-secure your steering rack and move onto the next step.

Step Three: All Phasers set to ‘Bleed’

In a cosmically fortuitous turn of comedy, once you have it all screwed, you are now set up to give the courtesy of a reach-around. The official instructions guide you to turn the fully travel the rack back and forth “a couple of times” to “let any excess fluid bleed out”. Once you’re done up top, reach in from around the subframe with your 3/32″ hex key wrench and tighten the bleeder down nice and snug with some manufacturer-recommended thread locker dabbed on the threads (highly recommend by us as well given it’s not-an-actual-bleeder-screw nature).

Check back next Sunday for Part Two where we take perfectly good steering components out and then likely never test drive the car until the spring, where we’ll find that it’s now extremely difficult to wrestle the steering wheel in low speed, short radius turning conditions in the good name of weight reduction.