ok this is how all this came about and completely makes no sense !

a friend of mine had his bronco repaired by someone who really didnt know what they were doing ! Simple timing chain and water pump with all new gaskets . He drove it from his house to mine (5 miles)and it was out of water and over heating

Sooo , I took on the job of fixing it correctly ! It was all close to being fine except the back plate of the water pump was bent good enough that it wouldnt seal against the gasket well enough and the timing was way off . With all that said , I did the typical strip down of the motor to get the pump off (serpentine belt off , fan off, shroud off ..... all the normal stuff)I unbolted the bracket which holds the ac pump and ps pump and just slightly moved it to the side (not disconnecting anything) so I could do the job.

Put it all together and WALA !!!! No power steering !!!! Called the guy and asked if it were working before it came in ..... he said yes . It was under warranty through auto zone so I took it off and had it replaced and installed it ...... and WALA !!!! no power steering !!! Turned the wheel several times back and forth to see if I could get the fluid to work back through the system with no luck .

I did read through some forums here about jacking it up and going from stop to stop to get the air out and was going to try that tomorrow but any further advice would be good

I have installed many pumps in the past and have never ran into this . Its always whined or slowly worked it way back . This time ..... it acts as if the pump isnt even there !

 

is there ATF in the pump? positive the serp belt is routed correctly?

 

Kinked line?

 

Yes power steering pump is full and pretty sure the serp belt is on correctly . I thought that also about the belt but actually there is no other way to put the belt on

 

This was the first thing I checked out . That is why I replaced the pump because I saw no issue with the pump that was installed other than it wasn't working .

 

I appreciate the responses . I am going to jack it up when I get home from work and see about purging the air out of the lines . Not sure what else it could be . Never ran into this problem before and have changed many a pump

 

ok this process was done a couple of days after work . I followed the advice from a post from here which was jack up the front and turn the steering back and forth from stop to stop to purge the air out .

This actually worked ! except the post advised it would only take around 12 - 15 turns back and forth and it should be good . The one im working on must be a little stubborn because it was 2 sessions a half hour each . Countless times back and forth ! none the less the advice did work and its working fine now

Hopefully someone else can find this post useful in the future if their situation is similar to mine

 

I've been told the real way to bleed it of air is to pull the return line off at the pump, cap the bottom of the pump where the hose came off, and run the pulled off line to a drain pan, THEN move the wheel back and forth. Keeps the air bubbles out of the fluid that is getting sucked back in.

good job!

 

True ! But if the reservoir on the pump is full and you keep it full .... Wouldn't that be the same?

I didn't do a lot of research on it . For starters , I've truly never had this problem before and I've changed lots of pumps . I understand what your saying and it makes total sense but I just grab the first idea I came across in this forum . I'm just glad it did work !!!

What stumped me is I never took the lines off the pump or disturbed the pump in anyway except pull the bracket it was mounted to aside to do the water pump work . In my opinion .... It shouldn't have lost its prime in the first place .
Just one of those things I guess