when you say wanders, do you mean slop in the steering or that it just won't hold direction?

rag joint would be slop in the steering.
wallowing back and forth, requiring corrections, but otherwise tight steering is an alignment issue.

but slop in the steering could be the gear box even with low miles.
As I understand it from the rebuilder steering without assist could cause damage to the gear box.
They said(and I don't know how true it is) that it had a torsion spring inside of some sort that could be damaged by cranking on the wheel without assist.

I checked under the car by moving the gear box by hand and watching how long it took to move the pitman.