It wont let me post in the troubleshooting section for whatever reason so I guess ill post here. Im hoping this isnt removed because i am desperate.

My buddy was borrowing my car the other day when some dumb ***** backed into my baby and dented the right front fender. Not sure if she hit the wheel. Me being a dumba** i settled outside of insurance. So the fender is payed for but thats all.

Now here is my issue, Ever since that day my buddy says the steering is getting tight (My license is suspended for another 17 days). I have the car back at home now and I can turn it a quarter to half a rotation, it gets tough, then easy for a quarter to half turn, then tough again, then easy, and so on and so forth.

Ive unclipped and sprayed/cleaned all electrical connections for the power steering rack and checked the fuse at the battery so im hoping the rack is fine. But the problem is its still binding weirdly.

Not sure if its related but the steering wheel when i got the car back had a lot of up and down play even when locked. I corrected that by pushing the plastic bushings on the steering shaft under the dashboard back into place and its pretty tight now but the steering is still doing that weird binding then unbinding thing. PLEASE for the love of god help I have no idea what to do next. And no the EPS light is not on on the dash.
2004 6 speed rx8

Thanks guys!

 

Maybe check the steering shaft u-joints for binding.

The rack usually just stops assisting...so it will be hard to turn all the time.

 

Thats what i figured. And if figured if it was going to go bad it would just stop immediately. not progessively get worse and worse without triggering a light. How do i check them for binding???