One of those weird things ...

Having seen occasional complaints about mysterious popping noises and seeing the usual suspects being bantied about, I thought this might be an interesting (albeit somewhat long ... sorry) story:

Last week I started to notice a really strange, loud, poppy/clunky noise sort of from the dash area whenever I would accelerate a little bit, then release the gas. This would occur on a very regular basis. Sounded as if the dash was about to just pop loose. Very weird and annoying. Thought maybe dash, something in the suspension that was causing it, maybe engine or tranny mounts. Planning on taking it to the dealer this week for my binding issue (posted elsewhere) so I figured I'd just have them check that out then, too.

On a completely different issue, my clutch cable will occasionally need tightening. Perhaps it's old and stretched? Dunno. Anyhoo, I tightened up the other day because I was getting some hesitation from a stop. I would release the clutch and have to rev fairly high and let the clutch out pretty far to get the thing to start moving, and even then it would sort of buck. Just felt like the clutch wouldn't engage. Cable was my first thought. Tightened it. Afterwards, pickup was just fine and there was no more faltering. PLUS ... this is the part I didn't expect ... no more popping noises. I made the association with the cable being tightened. "Cool, I fixed it." I drove around for awhile and after an hour or so, the popping came back. "Damnit," I thought. "It's not the clutch cable after all." When I got home, I checked the clutch cable again because the faltering also seemed to have come back. Well, apparently I hadn't tightened the locknut tight enough because it had vibrated loose and was about a half inch away from coming off the bolt. I tightened it down with my super spidey strength to be sure the darn thing wouldn't come loose again. I've been driving it since and the popping noise has disappeared.

It's something I'd never seen or heard as a possible source for mysterious poppy/clunky noises, but perhaps that's another possible place to look for anyone who may be experiencing any?