78 Silverado-- PS squeal

[HBlue]

The truck has not had much use over the last several years, but I decided to put it back on the road.The power steering has had a terrible squeal for too long, and has a small leak at the shaft on the steering gear. It squealed for about 10 to 20 seconds from a cold start. It squealed sometimes when steering and badly again at hard left and hard right.

I replaced the PS pump and took a lot of time to bleed the system. That did not eliminate the cold start issue so I removed the alternator belt and found I had a bad bearing in the alternator, so I replaced that.

Sometimes I still get a short squeal from a cold start.

Is that small leak allowing air to enter the system and causing the squeal?

Do I need to replace the PS gear or maybe just the seal?