Ok, so I heard back this afternoon from the shop and as suspected, the bottom of the steering column and the bottom shaft is completely hacked up and basically junk. The joint at the end that connects to the input shaft of the steering gearbox is also junk and not correct for either the box or the steering column, so basically it's a rebuild of the steering column, a new joint and see if that solves the problem.
Lower control arm bushings are also shot, but those I can handle on my own, so I'm not as concerned about that. Speedometer shows 77K so I'm assuming original bushings so they'll probably be a ***** to press out and if I can't get them out, I figure I can run those to a shop and have them pressed in and out for a little bit, certainly a lot less than having these guys do that as a full job.
