Annoying rattle from dash/steering column area upon acceleration/deceleration

I have recently purchased my first Tacoma (a 2011 PreRunner 4wd) and have addressed all of the typical stuff one might expect to have to do to a used vehicle.
One issue remains: upon acceleration from a stop, OR braking from 20 mph or more, there is this very annoying, clunking-type noise that seems to be coming from inside of the steering column. I originally thought it was something loose under the dash, but I have pulled the underpanel down and looked all over, as well as pulling out the instrument cluster to see if something was loose behind it. No luck. The noise sounds like something small rolling backwards upon accelleration and then rolling back forwards upon braking. It is driving me nuts!
Any thoughts, anyone?

 

Welcome to Tacoma World! Troubleshooting sounds over the internet is very difficult if not impossible. Can you "feel" the clunks/noise like something is physically hitting?

When you mentioned steering column, my mind goes immediately to the intermediate steering shaft but I'm not sure your descriptions fit that noise/problem. Could be though, I have no way to tell. You can read more about that here to get you started:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/tacoma-2005-2015-intermediate-steering-shaft-replacement.541884/

Have you / are you able to get a friend in the passenger seat as a second set of ears to listen for it? Might help pinpoint where the noise is originating from (or not, again this is always tricky because it can be very subjective).

Good luck chasing it down!

 

I believe this is the TSB number for that issue :
TSB-0119-10