I'm assuming that the Equal doesn't come out when airing down? I wonder how much a person might hear/feel it on a more passenger style tire. I'm sure you couldn't hear rocks in your tires and mine are not too far behind.
Hopefully, you'll have the steering issue isolated/resolved before tearing into the knuckles again so that you don't add any additional variables into the mix.
They are already a variable as the problem arose after installing knuckle studs.