Mike Daley

Alright guys I need a little help here. So my new to me 2001 3500 QCLB has had fairly week power steering since I bought it a few weeks ago. After reading up on some forums I decided to take out the factory power steering screen and clean it up. Everything went well until I was bleeding the system after. I had the front end off the ground with the truck off and was turning lock to lock to push air out of the lines. After about 15 times turning the wheel back and forth I decided to start the truck. As I was turning lock to lock with the truck running (front end still off the ground) I lost all my power steering. When I hit the left lock one of the times I heard a "pop" or "snap" and then no power steering what so ever. I opened the reservoir and the pump was pushing around plenty of fluid. I checked the whole system for leaks and couldn't find anything. Does anyone know what happened? Maybe blew a seal internally or something? I have no idea how the pumps look on the inside so its hard for me to make an educated guess.

Thanks moparman for the detailed info! That should make it easier to narrow this problem down when I get a chance!

that is with the radio unplugged

yup i checked that. my interior lights turn off as soon as i unplug it so i figured it was good. but i checked it anyways and it was perfect

so first off i want to say that i am new to the forums. iv'e searched the web for someone who has had the same issue but so far i cant find it! so i went to my camp and all was well. the next day i unloaded all the dirt bikes and quads off of my flat bed and trailer and all was well. then about 30 min later i jumped back in the truck to run to the corner store and the radio didn't work.. weird.. it never came back on either. so when i got home the first thing i did was break out the multi meter. the battery power wire in the radio harness (yellow) was only coming up with .25 volts. and the ignition power wire (red) was only showing .20 volts. i checked the fuse on the drivers side of the dash in that small fuse panel and it was fine. so i stuck the multi meter in there and it was only showing .25 volts as well. i pulled every fuse on that panel and could not find a blown fuse. i also went under the hood into that larger fuse/relay panel and couldn't seem to find one for the radio. my interior lights as well as everything else works fine, just not the radio. does anyone have any ideas? please help me!