99 Suburban power steering

[99Burbank15]

So recently I bought a 99 k1500 suburban and yesterday morning the steering had a slight whine. Upon checkIng the reservoir it had not one drop of power steering fluid in it and I had been driving it perfectly for 4 days. (Bad ik ik)

Upon adding more fluid to the correct level (while engine cooled completely; and proceeded to get air by cutting the wheel each way ten times, when starting and repeating) it got me to town and back bout and hour worth of driving and I parked it. When I went to leave for work my power steering was completely out.

I do have some leaks I’ve noticed need addressed but today I checked the reservoir and it had no fluid again but my steering turns like a top?? Any thoughts as to why this is? Can air bubbles through the line or overfilling temporarily inop the power steering?

 

[sneakingfart]

It's a little unclear as to what actually went down regarding your steering cutting out, but to answer your question, the PS pump is a fluid pump and it uses fluid pressure to assist steering. A large enough air bubble can absolutely drop your pressure to almost nothing, and cause you to lose PS. I don't think overfilling will harm anything, considering you have what appears to be a major leak. Definitely address it, as you don't want to be surprised when you need to make a turn and you suddenly lose PS on a 5k lbs truck.

I have a 1999 K1500 Suburban myself, and unfortunately it is at the age where it starts to get expensive to own, if you want it to be perfect (as it came from the factory). What I mean by that is that you want to be 100% reliable and everything working 100%. If your truck is anything like mine, your steering is loose and probably doesn't hold the road well. In my case, I replaced the steering gear with a RedHead remanufactured unit, replaced the PS pump (mine was still good, but it is 25 years old and I was having the system opened anyway), all PS lines (two actually I think), the steering sensor for the EVO, and the steering shaft with rag joint. It now steers like new. Mind you it doesn't steer like a track car, but I doubt it ever did.

The reason I am saying this is that you are going to be opening the system anyway. If you can afford it, at least the steering shaft with rag joint (cheap and easy), and a quality reman steering gear (expensive and not so easy) will take your steering a long way, if you are having the same problems I was. Mine was actually dangerous on the road as it wandered quite a bit. Probably 5 inches of free play.