I just replaced a steering shaft in my 98 with another stock one. I had serious steering play due to a bad lower u-joint. The u-joint is not considered a replacement part, so I bought a $20 used shaft off some ebay vendor. I don't have the same kind of free play anymore, and the shaft doesn't have any play at the slip joint. It passed inspection and drives great on-road now.
However, I still notice that I have a lot of play in the steering wheel when the wheels are trying to follow a rut, and I'm trying to direct them out of the rut. The steering wheel may be turned 90 degrees and the wheels can still be going pretty much straight in the rut. I assumed this was due to the relatively thin material of the steering shaft twisting to relieve the strain of resistance felt at the wheels.
My comment on this is that don't you want the wheels to turn when you turn the steering wheel rather than the shaft to twist to relieve the strain? I'm only running 235/75-15's, so this effect must be much worse for those of you running real tires. . .
