Well I was under the truck for a bit this weekend and I got some things accomplished. First of all I took all of the cotter pins out that the guy at the shop had to hammer through to get them in. I took my time and was able to get all of the ends tightened down by hand enough so that the pins went through like they are supposed to. The one on the pitman arm is much better and there is no play at all there. I also went through the process of bleeding the steering box with ATF. I think that it had power steering fluid in it because it was not red. I searched here and everyone said to use ATF. I tried several of the methods that were recommended here but what worked the best was hooking up a one man brake bleeder kit to the bleeder valve on the steering box, starting the truck and watching the bleeder line until there weren't any more bubbles. I then closed the bleeder valve and tried the steering. It turns much easier than with the stock box. I only wish it were this easy to bleed brakes.

I now have a couple of problems. The steering works so well that it is clear that it needs an alignment. I think it is pulling a little to the right. We did the whole "home alignment" with a measuring tape before I left the shop in Boulder, but I would prefer getting it computer aligned at least once and then trying to maintain those settings myself. The other thing is I can't get my steering wheel to center. I took off the pitman arm three separate times and I can only get it within one quarter turn to either side of center. Does anyone have any ideas? Do you think that is how close together the teeth are on the output shaft? I was getting pretty frustrated and just left it for now. I was also thinking maybe the alignment shop can fix that too.

Chris Sutton
Golden, Colorado