Yup -- have run into this before.
When it comes to play in the steering you really need to eye ball your steering rods on BOTH ends to be sure.
When my brother and I were going crazy with these things a while back we noticed that sometimes the wheel end came loose, even though it had a castle nut and cotter pin. That's the first thing I would check. Next would be the rod ends at the end of the steering shaft. You will most likely find these are actually bent a bit (ours were). Only eye balling these things will you be sure if they need replacement. I don't own any pilots but on the FL350 the rod ends located at the end of the steering rod are left hand threaded. I am having trouble finding these as they're metic 10mm and left hand thread. Current during the Christine rebuild I have found that ALL of my rod ends on ALL machines I got are shot and bent. I think it was
speedchaser that made a die to "recondition" a rod end that he was working on. Mine are to far gone and actually egg shaped (ALL of them
). I will need to find a supplier before next riding season in April.