Two days ago I was changing out my coil packs with a friend of mine, when we got to cylinders 7 and 8 we had to disconnect the vacuum lines and pigtail connector from behind the resevoir. At some point we pushed the truck back so we could get more light and forced the tires to turn all the way with all this stuff disconnected so of course we finally finish and a day later as I'm pulling out of my parking space I realize that at a dead stop my wheels have no power assistance I have to fight it the whole way through. If I'm moving this isn't an issue and it only happens intermittently. My fluid is at the minimum line but I'm uncomfortable adding to it without doing a flush and fill because I don't know that the right fluid was put in by the previous owner and you can't mix mercon 5 with normal mercon or power steering fluid, I also believe this is where the system has always been running and it never gave me a problem. My question is, is it possible that forcing the wheels to turn in this manner I sucked an air bubble into the hydraulic systems that's causing the intermittent issues or would you be inclined to say that it's coincidence and the pump is failing?

 

Well your out of luck on Mercon because it has been discontinued some years back.
Mercon V is the replacement.
Fill to level as it's suppoed to be.
Try turning the wheels to both extremes several times to work any air out of the system.
The pump will holler a bit and go into by pass so don't hold it more than a few seconds each time.
If that does not do it, something else is going on.
Good luck.

 

yes, your level is low and your sucking air. Do as Bluegrass said, add steering fluid or MERCON V and crank the wheels stop to stop a couple times, let it stall out for 2-3 seconds at each stop.