Rattle culprit found and eliminated!
Hey all,
I found the source of that hideous and elusive rattle seemingly coming from the dash. It was the VIN/Data plate riveted to the firewall in the engine compartment, directly ahead of the fuzzy-hole area of the dash. It was loosely riveted, and would vibrate like crazy at certain speeds or rpms. I both isolated the source of the noise and solved the problem temporarily by wedging a piece of cardboard behind the plate; I will do a permanent fix tomorrow. Thought I'd post this in case anybody else has this problem:
Mystery Rattle Source
On a more amusing note, I also found this little guy when I took my center console out during cleaning:
Stowaway
Guess he belonged to the first owner. How he ended up under the console box is anybody's guess. I think I'll keep him in the glove box as a good luck talisman . . .
Ron