73 power steering bleeding

Ok guys bear with me on this one. The p/s reservoir's was leaking on my 73 where the big o ring is. So i changed just the o ring and the rear seal because  everything else was working fine.   After putting everything back together and doing the air bleed procedure the steering was hard as a rock. I tried all sorts of stuff, turning the wheel left to right and even pulling a vacuum on the reservoir.  No change. So this car has the p/s cooler. I pulled the return line going from the cooler to the pump started  the eng. and let some fluid pump out into a drain pan. Next I pulled a vacuum  at the p/s cooler return line to see if I could get the air out of the system.  After doing all of this and topping off the fluid it seems to be working fine, you can turn the wheel with one finger like before. So there had to be a big air pocket stuck in there someplace.  My thing is I've never seen this procedure for air bleeding the system done anywhere. ( and believe me I googled everything on the subject  ). Just wondering if anyone has ever had this problem before or was it just a fluke.  This thing drove me crazy for a couple of days.

I've never had that problem, but it's nice to know there's a solution. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Good to know, Im going to be changing the box and lines so Im going to have to bleed the system on mine too. I know in the past with my old foxbody i just had the front off the ground and went lock to lock with the car off a bunch of times, then fired it up and did the same. 

I really think it was a fluke. I've never had that problem before, but yea it's good that there is a solution if it happens again.

After receiving my rebuilt PS box from powersteering.com, it mentioned in the bleeding instructions that if air gets into the system, it can cause "air-bind" which is no power steering assist.

The instructions given to fix that were:

remove the pressure hose from the back of the pump, push a very thin straight pick into the pressure port hole to release stuck flow valve, push the pin in about 6 times, reattach the pressure hose and refill the reservoir.

Havent tried this technique so maybe someone else can verify it, just passing on instructions.

What you are pushing with the pin is the relief valve. If it gets stuck it will bypass the fluid directly to the reservoir. The idea is to get it unstuck. It may be worth to examine the port to make sure there are no debris inside it or that it is not scored.

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