Curt
Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can't see.
I know I'm late to reply, but hopefully this will help someone else going through the same problem. When doing a suspension/steering job on our trucks, I'd recommend renting all 3 pickle forks from O'Reilly's (pitman, tie rod, ball joint). IIRC, the ball joint pickle fork worked perfectly to separate the pitman from the center link. It had a wider opening and a taller wedge. The pitman pickle fork was useless to me as I ran into the same issue. I used the tie rod pickle fork along with the ball joint one for my entire front end rebuild.I'm having trouble getting the pitman to separate from the center link... The one I rented from Oreillys was wayyyyyy to small.
Also, much like everyone else you will need a pitman arm puller like @eran tomer posted to separate the pitman arm from the steering box.