Steering wheel grinding noise.

I had this happen once when I reinstalled my column. After lining up the steering shaft with the coupling and moving things around to get them aligned on the box tightened in place....by myself....I somehow caused the upper bearing column snap ring to pop off. This caused a misalignment and my wheel was able to be slid up and down a slight amount...about an eighth of an inch or so and it was rubbing on the outer column. I knew something was wrong right away and broke it down from the wheel. Found the snap ring had popped right off.
I also had a horn ring contact that had spun a quarter turn on another car and after it had worn the contact wheel clean in half, that’s when it started to make noise with a slight movement of the steering wheel.
Good luck.