2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission Vibration coming from dash / defrost vents

[Henry]

Ok, this is driving me absolutely batty. When going down the freeway, I am getting a vibration noise coming from my dash around the defrost vents. It sounds like plastic on plastic. When I push down on the defrost vent baffle, the noise goes away. I put some rubber shims between the bottom of the dash and the top of the vent baffle, but the vibration continues. Anyone else have this problem? Is it difficult to remove the top of the dash to access these vents, or do I not need to do that to fix the noise?

 

[rrausch]

Henry, mine just in the last week started to make the same noise. It IS annoying. I've got 183,000 on the odo. Mostly good clean highway miles. I haven't yet found my vibration--I'll check the AC vents. I got some of it to go away by taking out and reinstalling my cup-dumper--my dash is a different one though than the '99's.

 

[burnin oil]

My 95 rattled till I took out the dash. I found 3 of the vents plastic mounting studs that the retainer screws fit into were broken. A little plastic epoxy on the backside of them and the dash cracks solved the rattle. My truck is perfectly quiet inside now at 240K miles. It is a pita to pull the dash though. I wouldnt go through that again unless I needed to replace the AC under there.

 

[Henry]

Ok, this is driving me absolutely batty. When going down the freeway, I am getting a vibration noise coming from my dash around the defrost vents. It sounds like plastic on plastic. When I push down on the defrost vent baffle, the noise goes away. I put some rubber shims between the bottom of the dash and the top of the vent baffle, but the vibration continues. Anyone else have this problem? Is it difficult to remove the top of the dash to access these vents, or do I not need to do that to fix the noise?

A big thanks to Walt-L! I used his advice to quickly pull the dash and track down my vibration. It was, of all things, a loose VIN tag! Everytime I hit freeway speed, that thing would start to buzz and drive me nutts. I thought it was the defrost vents becuase fumbling with the one directly above the VIN tag would supress the vibration occasionally. Once I got the top of the dash off, I quickly found the real source of the problem. Thanks again Killer59 and Walt-L! God I love the TDR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!