I had this problem come back over the past few weeks. It has been over 64,000 miles ago since I "cycled the steering shaft". I am now about to turn over 200,000 miles, so I figured I would do it again and see if it works.

I had my wife hold the steering wheel position while I disconnected the top of the intermediate steering shaft. I unhooked the shaft from the bottom of the wheel and cycled it up and all the way down about 4 times and bolted it back up.

Steering clunk is now GONE! This job literally took about 2 minutes to complete! Such a simple fix for such an annoying problem!

 

I have somewhat of the same issue. My wife hates it but I just turn on the radio. I'll try some preventative stuff theatre posted on here.