I just bought my 1st truck about a month ago from a friend, it runs great, it has 86K original miles and he had no major problems with it for the past 3 years. After having it checked, tuned up and ready for inspection by the mechanic last week, a few days later, I found a puddle of oil under it. (It passed the inspection no problem :-)
Consider that the truck has a lift kit and bigger tires
After looking at it, with engine off and running, it turns out the oil is power steering fluid, the other morning while running parked, as soon as I touched the steering wheel it sounded like crap.

In the afternoon, I refilled the compartment and drove it to the bus stop. It drove perfectly. At my return late at night, the wheel was kind of really heavy and noisy and I left a puddle where it was parked....
I topped it off and it drove fine around town. Now I'm back to square one with an empty PS tank, a cranky wheel and a puddle in front of my house.....This is in a matter of 4 days....
I checked the hoses again and they were still dry, top to bottom, it look like the leak is by the shaft that comes out of the steering box, where the pitman arm is attached to. Is there some sort of seal there? Should I be looking at the entire box?
I've included a pic from this afternoon.
Any advice would be gretaly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

Joe



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From the way you describe it I would look into a new power steering box. For the price of a box it really would,t be worth trying to rebuild it.