Bob,
Thanks for the pointers; I'll be checking everything this weekend for sure. Here's a picture of the steering linkage:
The joints are pretty hefty:
I've a feeling the problem will turn out to be in the column itself. The rack was new/rebuilt. A quick visual inspection of the parts and I didn't see anything loose.
I've had a little bit of experience with bad linkages ... take a look at this fine piece of fabrication:
This piece of poop was in my Manta. The phasing of the joints is wrong and one of the joints was causing the steering to be loose:
Scary! Fortunately I found and repaired the problem before I got into trouble:
Thanks for the suggestions!