I finally spent some time this weekend pulling and resealing my vacuum pump.  I have been having some pretty good oil leaks as of late, also a ton of smoke ou tof the breather tube.    

 

I have also been having low vacuum issue at idle.

 

Pretty easy to do, hardest part is getting the 4 nuts holding the PS pump to the back of the vacuum pump off.  I highly suggest taking the truckt o a self wash place and power washing the area well before you start.   Takes about 3 hours the first time you do it, prob half of that the next time you do it. 

 

I have been %100 drip free since rebuilding it so I am pretty happy.  I also have plenty of vacuum now and almost no smoke out of the blowby tube.

 

Thanks for the write up mike,  I added a couple pictures that show how it goes back together.   

 

 

 

 

Did my old 3rd gen after 4 yrs of oil leaks. It was much easier than i though it would be. May be harder on later models. Just jump in and do it.

I've gotten pretty good about slamming a seal kit in vacuum pumps now. I can do it about 1 hour without pull the power steering pump.

I suppose you could just unbolt it from the motor then pull the vacuum pump apart right there,

10 minutes ago, Me78569 said:

I suppose you could just unbolt it from the motor then pull the vacuum pump apart right there,

 

That's about it. There is 4 nuts holding the power steering pump to the vacuum pump. Slide it out. Disconnect the oil line on the bottom of the vacuum pump. Then remove the 2 bolts holding the vacuum pump to the gear case. Slide it out and do the rebuild. Way less mess this way being you not disturbing the power steering system. Then proceed to doing the seal kit. Re-assemble in the reverse order. The only catch on reassembly is make sure the power steering pump seats fully on its own before tightening any nuts. If it won't seat then you haven't clocked the pump shaft correctly. Do NOT force or use the nuts to force the pump in damage will occur.