I guess I'll have to try that maybe next week.

Damn term paper.

 

Well, I am currently replacing the power steering fluid with ATF4 since the pump whines a bit.
Well, the steering had kind of been chunky for a little bit recently, but it has gotten way worse now. It's so bad I can barely turn the wheel and the pump is hanging bad. Does it just need to be bled and the level topped off? Help here...

 

does your power steering leak? if so just topping it up will probably be fine. if you don't have a leak you may want to jack the front end up and turn the steering wheel back and forth with the truck off. it will force the fluid out of the system and into the reservoir where you can siphon it out and replace it with atf. once you replace it you can fire the truck up and turn the steering wheel back and forth from lock to lock and it should refill the system with atf.

 

Well, I forced it to steer with the engine running.
It bled out enough to make it driveable. Funny thing is, it only does it while the truck is stopped, when moving it steers normally (6 in of slop, lol). I dunno what's up....

 

is there any slack in the power steering belt? trucks with no power steering steer great when you are rolling but are a pain to steer when you are stopped.

 

Not much at all, since I had just tightened everything when I did the alt. belt. I think it's bubbles. They'll work out, right?

 

hard to say. with how old the truck is it might be a worn out pump.

 

That's possible. But I'm gonna ride it out and see what happens.

I also torqued down the carb mounting bolts today too.

Vacuum leak comes and goes.

 

Gas gauge works every other time I start the truck and I'm really leaning toward the resistor thing in the gauge cluster. I was making sure everything was working today when I moved it and while testing the blinkers, I noticed the gas gauge and oil pressure going up ever so slowly. That's the resistor doing that, right?

 

sounds like your voltage regulator on the back of the gauges might have a bad connection.