Hello all,

Today I lost all power steering. When I pulled over to inspect, fluid was gushing from what looks like the metal pump body, in a location with no obvious purpose (like a relief valve or hose connection). Looked like the body cracked? Anyone else experience such a thing? Help is greatly appreciated, as the xk8 is my sole means of transport.

This is a close up photo of the side of the pump where it seems to be leaking from. This side faces the US driver's side wheel well.

 

Here is another photo. Hard to get a good shot due to the cramped space down there. From this angle, it looks like the body has a seam in the middle & perhaps this is a gasket that has blown?

 

 

It's a blown gasket, nothing you can do. I took mine apart, and it's a weird 3 piece composite gasket. I bought a rebuilt unit from Rock auto.

Be prepared for a heck of a time getting all the air out when you replace it.

 

You were correct about the gasket. After hours of cutting open my fingers to extract the pump from the engine bay, I opened it up and sure enough the gasket is all sorts of crazy. I even tried like a fool to use gasket sealer & put it back on the car... only to lose another two quarts of fluid all over the driveway (and all that wasted time & more blood).

Bottom line - if the gasket fails, replace the whole darn pump.

A refurb pump is on it's way from Rock Auto. I pray it never needs touching, ever again.

 

What worked best for me was having the whole front end off the ground, then I sat at a wheel and turned it lock to lock many, many, many times to help purge the air. Have something to catch the fluid, since it may overflow during this process.

 

The refurb pump is finally in. I went with the "ATSCO 5564 Power Steering Pump" as the only other option (Cardone) required my car to be out of service for much longer (you have to ship your pump to them, which they rebuild and mail back to you).

I'm beginning to see why Jag mechanics charge such high rates... this engine is NOT fun to work on. There is no room anywhere. You have to take apart half the car to get to anything.

But I digress... thanks for your help!

 

Driving along, and all of a sudden, I hear the power steering pump whining, then a high pressure fluid leak and total loss of power steering (in the middle of a turn). The XK8 is not easy to steer at slow speed without PAS! Thought that I had blown a hose, but to be sure, I put some fluid in it, covered the side of the pump with a towel, and had someone turn the wheel with the engine running, being careful to keep my hands away from moving parts! Only leak that I found was in the towel and dripping out below the pump. Replacing now with an ACDelco rebuild purchased on Amazon. The technical bulletin for this procedure makes it sound easy, but access is a bear. The 4 front bolts were impossible to get with a hand socket set, but came off OK with an air ratchet. One bolt is blocked by the belt tensioner, but you can get to it if you push the tensioner out of the way with one hand while getting the air ratchet on with the other and removing the bolt while the tensioner is out of the way. Not easy, and perhaps if I had a swivel head hand wrench with a long handle, that might have worked. Last front bolt is below the pump and mostly out of sight. Did that one by feel. Still struggling to get the low pressure hose off and to remove the high pressure connection. Hence, I'm on the forum looking around for advice and thought I'd post my progress so far. This would be a piece of cake if you could just get to it. Jaguar engineers had no problem designing all of this to go together outside the car and dropping the engine in, but they seemingly forgot that someone might have to service it at some point...

 

I've been hunting for a PS leak around the pump that leaks onto the exhaust. The lines all seem dry, and after seeing this my spirits have not been raised.