before you start replacing major steering components, check to see that it is not the inner track arm joint. These are hidden inside the gaitors attached to rack. They wear, possibly even worse than the more normal outer track rod ends.
Check them by firmly grasping track rod arm (with car weight on it) and tugging it back and forth (looking for movement at rack side), also try it with car jacked up. My steering was vague for ages, but after changing them, car steering felt as tight as new. However reno being reno means you can only get them as part of whole track control arm, which are about £50 odd each plus vat. But really do make a difference, think 16v racks and columns are reasonably long lasting, although pump seems to be a weaker link, although generally they only get noisier, at what mileage is it on?
