Knocking felt and heard in Steering Column

I started noticing during slow turns, I would hear/feel a clunk coming from my steering wheel area. I was replacing the control arm's on both sides with a friend and had him listen in to see if he knew what the sound was. I was able to repeat sound while my vehicle was turned on and sitting in park. What I did was to turn the steering wheel all the way to the right, just before the wheel would lock, and followed doing that with turning back to the left and while I would do so it would produce a knock/banging sound which seemed to be coming from somewhere near the gas and break pedals but we were not for sure. This sound was fairly easy to repeat by rocking the wheel back and forth. The knocking could be felt on the tie rod end on the driver side. I've replaced both control arms/new ball joints for some other rattling concerns, as well as had the recall work done (ignition) at the dealership just this past Saturday and had them diagnose the problem of the steering wheel thud, they told me the found the problem and had a solution which was to replace the sway bar links. This was also not the solution, just was the last piece to stop the front end rattling. I am looking for any help on the matter my mechanic buddy thought it could be the rack and pinion or that I needed to replace the intermediate shaft?