alright so my old steering box was leaking real bad and my uncle had another steering box so i installed it on the truck, ran my lines, lifted the truck off the ground, then took off the return line and cycled the wheel back and fourth for a bit, got out and put the return line back on, now i put the truck back on the ground and i have to use wayyyy to much effort to turn the wheels, what am i doing wrong? is this a job that 2 guys gotta do? all the $8 worth of steering pump fluid ended up on the ground and in the oil pan i had under the truck.

 

Steering gears will self bleed. Just run the truck and cycle the steering stop to stop for a few times with everything hooked up and the air will bleed out. It may take a few times to get it all but if it doesn't self bleed you have a problem with the gear.

 

Leave all the power steering lines hooked up. Then jack the truck up taking all the weight off the front end. Cycle the steering back and forth a few times with the engine off, check the reservoir then start the engine and cycle it a few more times which will bleed all the air out. If you do this with the weight of the truck on the tires your defeating the purpose and cavitating the pump.

 

This might not be relative to your problem... well a little... I had a Toyota Van, an old one, in Honolulu that I did some work on the steering system and followed all the instructions to get the air out of the system including jacking it up with the weight off the wheels and so forth and could not, for the life of me, get all the air out. The power steering worked but it was real noisy. You could here the air in the system (for days). What I wound up doing was making a cap for the power steering pump with a copper (1/4") pipe soldered into it and hooking a vacuum pump to it while the motor was running and turned the wheels back a forth a couple times..... The noise and the air was gone in less than 5 minutes. Just relating....