Steering Question

This sounds like the infamous loose pinch bolt on the pittman arm.  How far off is it?  If it's an inch or so I'd be willing to bet that's the problem.  Tightening it enough to remove that last tiny bit of play usually requires a long lever on the wrench.  You only need to tighten it a flat on the bolt, possibly less.

It moves what would be the approximate equivalent of one tooth on a spline. So it may be jumping a tooth on the pinch bolt. I'll try tightening that as well as the coupler. 

Pittman arm bolts were very tight, coupler was tight. I did notice that my turn stops are no longer in place. Kirks mechanic must have left them off when he did the conversion. The pittman arm travels all the way and hits the frame.

All the cars are different, I know, so what happened to my JPS may not apply here, but I offer it up as a warning.  If the stop bolts are not set properly (or are missing, as it sounds like here, and what was true in my case also), then you can turn the wheels until the rubber of the tires hits the torsion tube frame.  I suppose you can figure out that such a thing is bad for the tire.  When I discovered this, I had a deep groove in one tire, with lots of cut cord showing.  I then discovered where the stop bolts should be, that they were not there, and so I got some and applied them, with jam nuts applied also to help keep them there.  Words to the wise.

My beam didn't have them either. The powdercoat was in the threads so ran a tap through, then installed bolts and jam nuts like El Frazoo.

8mm x 1.25 threads, somewhere between 25 and 35mm long.