I'm sure this has been covered many times, buts I haven't seen anything lately.

I'm replacing the power steering pump on my '73 Delta 88 with a 350. The pulley is not a press fit, but rather is held on by a retaining nut, so a pulley removal tool is not the solution here.

How on earth do you turn this nut without turning the pulley? I presume you have to clamp the pulley down somehow or try to hold it in place, but anything strong enough to stop the pulley from moving is likely to damage the pulley itself. I've looked at youtube videos, and people have done things right up to and including the use of dynamite to get the nut loose. People have successfully used an impact wrench, but removing the pump from the car while still in the bracket is required. That's not that big of a deal, but can you remove the pulley without removing the pump and its bracket from the car?

The service manual is remarkably unhelpful on this matter. Step 1 in removing the water pump is simply "Remove pulley retaining nut." Just like that. As simple as falling off a log. And the manual certainly assumes that the pulley will be removed with the pump in the car because the later steps involve removing the fan belt, loosening bracket bolts and hoses, etc.

Thanks.

 

I've found that the easiest way to loosen the nut is to leave the belt tensioned and use that as a "strap wrench" to loosen the nut. An impact wrench really makes this easy. Of course, that's not the real problem. Once you do get nut off, the pulley will be stuck on the shaft and you'll bend it trying to get it off.

Ask me how I know...

 

I believe I’ve had success with an impact on the nut while holding the pulley. If the pulley has a hole you might be able to stop the pulley with an extension or screw driver.

 

Thanks all! Regarding leaving the belt tensioned, I tried that. The service manual implies this because the belt removal step comes after the nut loosening step, which is the first step. The pulley kept spinning under the belt. I may try it again, making sure the belt is really good and tight.

The pulley has no holes in it, so I can't lodge something in it.

I did order from rockauto a new pulley. When I get it, which should be early next week, I'll make sure it's the correct size and will fit properly on the new pump. Assuming it does, I won't care if I bung up the old pulley in getting it off and I'll probably clamp it in a vice and then put the impact wrench on the nut. All I would need from the old setup is the nut, and I'm thinking that if worse comes to worst, I can find a nut that will work at the hardware store.

 

OK, Joe P gets the award and is my new best friend, at least for the moment.

I put the belt back on and tightened it tighter than I've ever tightened a belt. Tighter, even, than I make my belt around my waist to hold my gut in!

I had treated the nut to PB Blaster several times over the last few days. I put my big, 7/8" wrench on the nut, which gave me a fair amount of leverage, and pulled. Wouldn't you know it, but the nut turned without turning the pulley. Hooray!

Getting the pulley itself off was simple. Just tapped it slightly with a hammer, and it popped right off.

For those of you who have never seen a power steering pump pulley and its associated nut, I just had to take a photo to commemorate the event. I was so prepared to try all sorts of things with clamps and impact wrenches, and I had lined up a whole new batch of swear words to use, and none of it was needed. But that's OK!





But, because nothing is ever easy, another issue has arisen. Note that the pulley has a little notch along the edge of the opening. This notch indexes with a raised ridge on the pump shaft.

Here's the pump shaft with the pulley removed. The light was little a bright, but you can see the raised ridge along the bottom of the shaft.






The thing of it is, the new pump does not have this raised ridge. In fact, it has a depression in the shaft that looks like it could index with the pulley notch. Not sure what that little bit of white paint is above the notch. It suggests that something is supposed to line up there.






The old pulley fits just fine on the shaft of the new pump, and I'm guessing that, when the nut is fully tightened, it will hold the pulley against the raised portion of the shaft. But I'm also wondering if I shouldn't try to fit something into that indentation in the shaft. It looks like you could take, for example, a nickel coin, cut it in half, and place the rounded side into the notch. It could be cut such that the cut side is facing up and sticks out a small amount and would index with the notch in the pulley. If not a nickel per se, something small and thick like that, and it would need to have a rounded side to fit nicely into the notch. I willing to take a nickel out of my life's savings and sacrifice it for this purpose..

Thoughts on this?


The new pulley, which I haven't received yet, does have a notch like the old pulley.

 

The "raised edge" is a key that is pressed into the slot in the shaft. Tap the end of the key with a screwdriver and hammer and it will pop right out. Just put it in the new shaft before installing the pulley. Note that the outer edge of the key needs to be perfectly parallel to the shaft or the pulley won't go on all the way.

 

Cool! I will try getting the key out of the shaft right now.

 

Jaunty, as many cars as you have had and as knowledgeable as you are, I am surprised you did not know about this key. Not a criticism, just and observation. We never quit learning about this stuff. Congrats on getting it apart.

 

Joe P! As Captain Kirk used to say to Scotty once in a while after Scotty did something clever and unexpected, "you've just earned your pay for the week!"

 

It took a few taps with a hammer on a screwdriver, but the key popped right out.





First off, where did you find an archival photo of one of these things?

Secondly, what's the point? Why not just mold the shaft so it has a raised ridge on it? What's the point of the removable indexing key? And why doesn't the service manual mention anything about it?

I can answer the last question. Because the service manual assumes that you want to rebuild the existing pump and takes you through the steps of doing so. No thought was apparently given to the idea that you might be replacing the pump and would need to move the key from old to the new. Or maybe they assumed that, if you needed a new pump back at the time, the new one would come with its own key.


Thanks again!

 

Thanks, but, first of all, I'm only knowledgeable to the point that it gets me in trouble!

I have replaced power steering pumps before, but all of them have had pressed-on pulleys that are removed with a pulley removal kit. I've never encountered a pulley that was held on by a nut and used an indexing key like this...until now!

 

The shaft isn't "molded", it's machined from bar stock. Kinda hard to machine a raised keyway on a lathe. This is why the newer PS pumps us pressed-on pulleys as opposed to the key and nut. Even less machining cost, plus it saves ten cents worth of key and nut.
File the burrs off that key before you try to reuse it.

This exploded view is from the 1970 CSM. Interestingly the key is shown in the drawing and called out in the parts list but they lost the #26 callout on the drawing.

 

Makes sense.

Yes, I was going to clean up that key a bit.

But not today because now I have to watch the PGA Championship on TV!

 

Got the new pulley today. Looks very similar to the old one. Exactly the same diameter. Doesn't say "front" on it, though. (But it does say "back" on the back! Not really.)

 

I see the new one has flats on the shaft mounting area so you can hold the pulley from turning with a wrench while cranking on the nut.

 

I noticed that. A nice touch. Would've been nice for the original pulley to have that.

 

To finish this up, I have finished the installation of the new pump. In the process, I actually took everything out of the box that the new pump came in. Originally I just took the pump out, leaving the little packet of documents in the box, figuring that they'll pretty much tell me what the service manual tells and warn me to make sure to bleed the system.

Well, guess what else was in the little plastic packet hiding under a folded document? One of these little metal indexing keys to be installed on the new pump shaft! I never needed to remove and re-use the old one. But the new pump is on the car with the original metal key, and I'm not taking the pulley off again just to use the new key. Plus, the car is more original this way, having its original power steering pulley shaft indexing key. How cool is that!!

Next AACA show, I'm entering the car in their HPOF (Historic Preservation of Original Features) class. I'll point out to the judges that, since it can't be seen with the pulley in place, if they use their imagination, they can visualize the original indexing key, just like they can visualize the original fuel gauge sending unit in the gas tank. They'll be impressed, I'm sure. I can see the first-place trophy now!