My goodness, I had been living with the rattle for a while thinking it was because I had popped off part of the grill and needed to take the bumper off to pop the clips back in. I finally got around to fixing the bumper and the sound was still there. Dealership wanted $1K to replace the drive shaft.
31K miles on this car. and the rattle started maybe 3-4K miles ago... I don't drive it aggressively or anything. But there has been tons of road construction around me in the last couple years, so lots of driving on those half-paved roads. I don't know if that killed it faster.
Then I found this forum. Thanks so much ermax.
Can someone point me to a tutorial on how we are supposed to give thanks for posts, or tag people? I guess maybe send me a private message. I don't want to pollute this thread with my noob questions
Using a wrench to pull out the bottom bolt while wiggling really made it super quick to do. I used a 13mm open ended wrench to hook under the bolt head.
I did this all mostly while keeping the 14MM nuts at the top basically at their lowest level. This supported the steering column but gave me wiggle room. Pushing on the Power Steering motor while pushing with the wrench popped the bolt out in a few seconds.
To get the blasted bolt back in, I never really got it fully threaded until I started the car and wiggled the steering wheel while lying in the footwell. With the power steering engaged it really does a good job of wiggling everything down there with little effort. (Maybe working on the car with the engine running is unwise. I'm not recommending anyone try it)
I'm pretty pleased I was able to complete the job, as I have some disability issues with my shoulders.
The good news is my rattle is gone!
Tomorrow I'll probably drive by the dealer to show them what I have found. Doesn't hurt right? They wanted $750 for the drive shaft part alone...
I also have lots of dashcam footage that includes the rattle sound if anyone wants I can post that as well. Mine was getting really bad.