How to Replace High Pressure Power Steering Line 1997-2006 BMW 325 Xi

What's up guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video I'm going to show you how to replace the high pressure power steering lines on this 2001 BMW 325xi. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description, head over to 1AAuto.com.

What we want to do is suck some of the fluid out of the power steering reservoir. We're going to use this fluid transfer pump. Take the cap off. We actually sell these pumps at 1AAuto.com. Suck as much fluid out as we can get. With this pump I can actually get a good amount of the fluid out. Normally if you have different hoses, they can't get as much fluid out, so this works actually really well.

You're going to need to remove the shield right here if your vehicle has one, you're going to have different retainers up here, either screws or some type of push pins, and then you'll have screws right here. These are rotted away, so this vehicle we just pull the panel off but it looks like Phillips head screws for both of those. Pull that off. All right, so the reason why we're replacing this power steering pressure line is because it's really rotted away and it's probably going to burst. So rather than have that happen while you're on the road and get stuck, we going to replace it. A good thing to do before you even start is just take the new hose and hold it up to the old hose. Make sure it looks right and this does look right. So we're going to continue moving on.

First thing I'm going to do is soak this down with a little bit of rust penetrant so that we can salvage that. All right, let me just spray this down a little bit. Let it soak. Just take a 10 millimeter socket and ratchet. Take this nut off. On the back side of this, there's a screw that is a hex screw. I'm not going to be able to get a key in there. What I could do is take this bracket off from up top, but I don't want to do that. I'm just going to use some locking pliers and just lock them on and then take it off that way. Take that off. I'm just going to leave that bolt in there or screw. Just get a screwdriver. Pry this bracket off. Have to reuse this bracket, try to get this off the lines. Just going to grab it with some pliers. Take it off.

Now on the power steering pump, there is the fitting right there that goes to this high pressure line. It's not really that easy to get to. If you have an automatic transmission, the transmission cooler is in the way and this sway bar's in the way a little bit, so you may have to move one of those out of the way to gain access to this. We're going to try it without ticking that. I'm going to use a 17 millimeter wrench. Loosen this up. Make sure you have a drain bucket underneath because you're going to want to catch the fluid. There we go. So I got it loosened a little bit without taking either of those. Okay so I got this loosened up and just pull that out. Let that drain in the bucket.

Now there's a Banjo bolt from right on the steering rack, that is the other connection to this power steering pressure line. I'm going to use a 19 millimeter socket. I'm going to start by getting the socket on. It's a little bit tight in here. Just fish your hands in through here. If you wanted to take the sway bar out, it's just two 13 millimeter nuts on this side and then two 13 millimeter nuts on this side. I'm not taking that down because they're pretty rusted on this car so I don't want to break those. So we're going to do that without and then I'm just going to use the extension and a ratchet. Go right through here. Keep in mind kind of the direction of how the hose goes because you want to put the new one on the same direction as that. All right, once I get that a little loose, I could probably do it by hand. More fluids coming out. Okay, I'll pull the socket off. Let's see if I can twist it out by hand.

And yeah, it's pretty loose so I can get it with my fingers. A lot of times, once you crack these free because there's power steering fluid behind it, the rest of the bolt is not going to be rusted. So be able to do it by hand. All right, I got that loose. Can just slide this out, and slide it down just like that. Now there is going to be a washer on here and I don't see it there so I got to feel up around the power steering rack and make sure to get that washer off. And there it is.

So I'm going to put the new seals on the new hose. Generally they come with the hose and then there's these two washers or seals. Just take the Banjo bolt, just make sure it's clean. This came off the old one. Put one washer on the top side of it. It's going to go there and the other one's going to go on the bottom. It's going to be a little bit tricky to get it in there. But just try to keep it all together.

This. It's a good idea to just wipe the hole off before with a rag. Just make sure you don't have any dirt. All right, so I got that starting, which is good. Both seals are on there. Based on the size of the bolt, the torque is going to differ, so what we're going to do is we're just going to snug this bolt up and if it's actually leaking, we will just snug it up a little bit more. Generally it's in the area of 30 foot-pounds. All right, that good.

Now before I hook this onto this bracket, I am going to get this threaded over here, slide that in position and get it started. And I'm going to take an 18 millimeter wrench and tighten this up. The original one was a 17 millimeter. But this one has a different fitting on it. Make sure the line is lined up correctly, how you want it. Make sure it's not rubbing on anything and then we'll just snug it up right here. Going to be very hard to get a torque wrench in there, so just snug it with the wrench the best we can.

Now we'll take this bracket, line this up, get the nuts started. Just going to use the locking pliers on that bolt. Then a 10 millimeter socket and a electric ratchet. Oops. Push this in a little bit. Then we'll just snug that up just like that.

So if you had a shield, you're going to want to reinstall that shield. We're going to have some retainers that go here, push pins or screws, some screws right there. This vehicle doesn't have the correct screws and they need to be replaced so.

All right, now we're going to add some fluid. Take the cap off, set it aside, take a funnel, make sure you check your owner's manual for the appropriate type of fluid. Sometimes it actually says on the cap, what type of fluid.

So you want to check underneath the vehicle. Make sure you don't have any leaks. So everything's dry, that's good. So just going to check the fluid level. Now a lot of the fluid came out when we were changing the line, so the fluid's a little on the high side, which is okay. What we're going to do is we're going to start the vehicle up and turn the wheel back and forth. Stop to stop. It is going to aerate the fluid a little bit. So you're going to have to let it sit and recheck the level. Top it off again.

Now I am going to have the wheels up off the ground. That's just going to make it so there's no pressure on the steering rack when I'm doing this. Right, so I'm just going stop to stop. Just going to do it about eight times. Now just take the cap off. It's down a little bit. It actually didn't get to aerated which is good. Here's a little more, just use the funnel so we don't spill it. Yeah, that looks perfect. A little bit on the high side, but that's okay. I'm going to put it down in the ground. Do the same thing in the ground and then road test it and recheck my level and adjust accordingly.

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