Lower steering column bearing

[8lugnutz]

Well guys, after checking everything else out on the truck, which seemed to be mostly in order, I had the truck idling and noticed that the brake booster was moving left/right at low idle. I grabbed ahold of it and moved it a little more left and right, and discovered that it was what was making the noise. I happened to be at work with no tools in the truck (yeah, I know. Bad idea), so I too a bungee cord and strapped it to the fender. All the way home NO NOISE, NO RATTLE. Nice and quiet!!! So, once I got it back to house, I took a look at it and a couple of nuts were a little loose, so I tightened them back down. I still have a little bit of a rattle now without the bungee, but it's not near as bad as it was.

So, the moral of the story is, if you have a rattle in the dash and you can't figure it out, check the brake booster mount and nuts. This whole time I thought it was steering, front end etc, and it may turn out that any one of those may have been a contributor, but the root cause was the brake booster.