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today to drain and replace my power steering fluid, as my 1998 3.0 V6 just surpassed 50,000 miles, and the old fluid was dark brown and low. I was able to drain and refill the system no issues, but when I got to trying to bleed the air out of the system with the fresh fluid, I'm having trouble clearing all the air. The truck was jacked up in the front so both wheels could turn freely, fuel pump fuse/relay removed, and the tutorial said to turn the wheel lock to lock until the bubbling stops and the fluid levels out. Most other resources I saw suggested turning lock to lock ~20 times. I did this probably over 100 times, trying all sorts of combination of speed and pausing for a few seconds on each lock, but no matter how much I did it I was still getting gurgling bubbles (not just the frothy look) and fluctuations in the fluid level. I thought maybe it was normal, so I reinstalled the fuse/relay and turned it on, and the wheel was very shaky when turning, presumably from air still trapped in there. It almost seemed like air was being drawn in from somewhere, as it seems unlikely that I would need to move the wheels lock to lock over 100 times to get all the air out. As in the video, I drained the fluid from the low pressure line before the cooler, which was reinstalled tightly with the hose clamp properly placed.
Does anyone have any ideas as to what might be going on? I was at it for a few hours and gave up for now, but let me know if there is something else I can try or something I'm missing!
Seems to be a tear in this boot, not sure what it's covering, but seeming like the steering rod. example of the large gurgling bubbles I was seeing when turning lock to lock
Issues fully bleeding air out of power steering system after replacing fluid
