Now the housing can be slid over the pump. A slight wiggling motion while pressing down should do the trick. Whatever you do, don't use the hardware to pull the two pieces together or smack it with a hammer. Either one of those will bend the housing and again cause a leak. Hand pressure should be sufficient enough to get them together, unless you are a weak, pathetic girly man, and in that case turn in your tools and start wearing a dress. | 
When the parts are joined, install the inlet insert with the spring, the two studs, and the bracket. That's it for the pump, until we get the box swapped out. |
To get the box out, we'll have to remove the rest of the stuff hooked to it. Remember we already removed the steering arm and the lines. We decided to take the steering shaft out while it was still hooked to the box, so the hardware was unbolted at the base of the column. The only reason we did this was because our steering coupler--the rubber piece that goes between the box and the steering shaft--was showing signs of wear and producing some slop in the steering system. | 
There are three 21mm bolts that hold the box to the frame. |
With everything disconnected, Brian was able to remove the worn-out box. | 
Here is a side-by-side shot of the two boxes, and as you can see, they are totally the same when it comes to outer housing. AGR put most of its knowledge and tricks inside, except the bitchen billet covers and the proprietary coating. |
Here is the steering coupler we got from AutoZone to replace our factory one. We first called the dealer to see if they had one, and after we got the "It will be 121 bucks," we decided to run down to the AutoZone and pick this one up for less than 10 bucks. | 
Upon closer inspection, we found out why the dealer part was so expensive. The shaft and coupler are riveted, instead of bolted together, so they wanted to sell us the whole shaft and coupler. Ryan used a cut-off wheel to grind off the tops of the rivets and blow it apart. Then, he installed the new coupler with some hardware from the shop. It doesn't look quite as clean as the rivets, but it saved us about a 100 bucks. |
While all that was going on, Brian installed the AGR box, which fit just like factory. He torqued the bolts to 66 lb-ft. | 
Once Ryan finished the shaft, it was slid in place and tightened down to 30 lb-ft. You can see the bolts on the coupler are a little cluttered, but its strong, and even better yet, it has no slop. |
Now that we had somewhere to install the lines, the P.S. pump assembly was hung back on the block and the pulley reinstalled. This is where you would need a specialty tool like this installer. If you try and pound the pulley on with a hammer, all you will do is damage the pump and maybe even bend the pulley. You could always borrow the tool from AutoZone while you are picking up a coupler. | 
AGR recommends changing out the lines when putting in a new box, but we just replaced them about a month ago, so all we had to do was hook them up. |
After one last check, it was time to fill 'er up, so we opted to use Royal Purple's Max EZ high-performance power steering fluid. | |
There are a few procedures to properly bleed out the air from a power steering system, and AGR gives you a step-by-step breakdown in the instructions, but here is the gist of it. With either the front wheels off the ground or the steering arm removed (like ours), fill fluid reservoir to "full cold" level and leave the cap off. While an assistant is checking the fluid level and condition, turn the steering wheel lock to lock at least 20 times. While turning the wheel, check fluid constantly to ensure proper level and that no bubbles exist. If you see any signs of bubbles, recheck all connections then repeat the steps above. Once you have completed the lock-to-lock turns, start the engine and top off the fluid level. Reinstall the reservoir cap and return the steering wheel to center.
With no bubbles, we were confident the system was bled, so under the truck Brian went to install the steering arm. | 
Brian first used the impact to tighten the nut before torquing it to 185 lb-ft. With that, the truck was taken off the jackstands, and we went for a drive. |
The Final Word
The steering of the truck is noticeably quicker and more responsive. We cut almost three fourths of a turn off the lock-to-lock ratio. Also, the feel of the wheel is much better, it is firmer without being tiring, and gives us the confidence to really throw this truck around some corners. Besides the seats and pedals, the steering wheel is what we as drivers are hooked to when we drive, and this upgrade has made it great. Check back next month, because we have a bitchen set of QA1 shocks to install and tune.