Okay so I've had like 15 or so degrees of play in my steering wheel for some time now. I have some pretty worn tie rod ends which sqeak, so I've always attributed the play to them being loose. Though yesterday when rotating my tires, I jerked the wheel back and fourth only to see the tie rod ends stationary.
I could see the shaft going into the steering box move, but not much movment of the arm. My father told me he used to have this similar problem with Chevys, that it was the gears wearing out and the teeth loosing engagement on eachother. Does this sound common to anyone? Not that I dont agree with him, but I just wanted to verify with some Ford guys.

He says that there was a double-nut of some sort you could loosen to bring the gears together. So I'm wondering if Fords have something similar?

It's a 97 F150 4x4, 4.6L, pushing 200K.

Thanks in advance!