Loud Click In Steering Column Or Wheel

[Abner Mality]

The vehicle is a 1980 300SD with about 200K miles. I had an alignment about two weeks ago before leaving town for a short vacation -- didn't drive the car.

This past Wednesday, I drove the car for the first time in about ten days. Passing through a construction zone, I had to cross one of those big steel plates they temporarily place over trenches. Those things are about an inch thick, but really solid, and this one slipped up on me, and I hit it at about 50 MPH.

I am now experiencing a loud clicking noise, seemingly from the steering column, everytime I cross an uneven joint in pavement or hit a bump. I can actually "feel" the noise, too. Very disturbing.

I took the car back to the alignment shop, yesterday for a looksee. They had replaced both lower tie rod ends with the alignment. The alignment has held, as I suspected, as I have not experienced any drift or pulling to either side. We tried to replicate the noise in the shop, but the only way to make it click is to drive it over a joint or bump.

The tech opined that the steering box was failing, and offered to pull it and replace. I declined that offer. I have a trusted MB indy that I would save that task for, but I have inspected the joint where the steering column joins the box, and everything looks good and it feels tight.

I have used the search option to no avail, and would appreciate opinions from owners or techs that might have experience with this problem.

TIA