Steering problem diagnosis

I finally put the car up on the jack stands this weekend to look at the steering system. I was happy to see that it wasn't the tie rods acting up because that means that I installed them correctly and that when I went for an alignment they didn't screw them up.

I had begun to suspect that one or both of the u-joints were bad. After giving steering inputs via the rotors and not finding any play I figured that both inner and outer tie rods were good along with the steering rack itself. I went from the other end of the system and provided input from the steering wheel and noticed a knocking noise that was accompanied by a hiccup in the smoothness of the rotation.

To test the u-joint I held the joint while rocking the steering wheel back and forth. This eliminated both the noise and the hiccup in rotation. I then thought about when I was experiencing the vibration and realized that it was always while I was on a straight away which makes sense because without any steering input to take up the slack in the u-joint the front wheels can do what they want.

I'll have to go to the dealer and see what a u-joint costs. I might replace them both along with the bearing just because they've all been subjected to loads that they normally wouldn't experience. It depends on the price of all of the parts.