Reply to "Steering Rack Play"

Maybe I'm not making this clear.
I went to have the safety inspection on my car and the mechanic jacked up the front end. He started to pull on the drivers side wheel and thought he felt play. As he was at 3 and 9 o'clock and moving the tire I saw the steering wheel moving back and forth with the slightest movement at the tire. He then went down and looked at the boot and there was a slight leak. He also said he saw flexing of the tie rod verticly. The passanger side tire was still on the ground. Ok, I took the Pan back to my house and did the same thing with the wife at the steering wheel. She felt movement as soon as I moved the tire. I removed the tire and found the inner boot clamp loose and no cuts on the boot so figure it's leaking at the inner band of the boot. The tie rod end is tight at the spindal and no movement was noted at the ball socket.
The question is with most cars there is a certain amount of play at the steering wheel becouse of a high spot on a pinion gear. Maybe about a 1/8 to 1/4" play total. The Pan seems to be vertualy 0" play at the steering wheel and my rack is tight to the frame (with the added spacers by the way) I have 38k miles on the car and don't push it real hard (much). The car tracks like it's on rails and no issues with steering are noted. I just had it 4 wheel aligned with max caster of about 3 degrees and no issues were noted at that time.
The other question was lubing the rack. Can you remove the upper cover on the rack and add fluid there? Will anything pop out if I remove the cover? I want to add the brake-in lube mentioned (0-1/2 weight), can this be added with the original oil in the rack?
Thanks again,
Steve in VA