Steering rack accelerated decrepitude

["ksgrimsr" <knut.s.grimsrud@xxxx>]

I seem to be suffering from the dreaded affliction of steering rack 
accelerated decrepitude. My rack is sloppy already and it seems like 
it's been less than 2 years since I installed my last one.

Since I seem to be chewing up steering racks at an accelerated rate, 
I wanted to get a better understanding for the common failure mode so 
I might better understand approaches that might be helpful in 
reducing my rack consumption rate.

First a description of the issue/symptoms: as usual for when the 
steering rack gets sloppy, the symptom is excessive play in the 
steering action. This play results in the car getting squirly when 
driving on rutted roads, and handling generally gets sloppy and lacks 
the precision handling that makes the DMC such a nice handling car.

Initial troubleshooting revealed no surprises. The slop is due to the 
inner tie rod end (usual). When the wheel is turned, the inner tie 
rod end initially translates vertically until some slack is taken up 
before it translates horizontally.

Now to my questions on understanding the rack failure modes: where 
the inner tie rod end enters the rack, is there a centering bushing 
through which the tie rod end passes? Is the slop that gets manifest 
as excessive vertical translation of the inner tie rod a result of 
the centering bushing getting elongated? If there is no such 
centering bushing (I guess I could just remove the boot and look for 
myself), what are the rack failure/wear modes that result in the 
observed kinds of slop (especially the vertical translation 
behavior). If there is a centering bushing, it seems that it would be 
pretty easy to improve its durabiltiy by turning a delron bushing (or 
name your favorite bushing material).

Knut