A rattle and a cleaning prob.

[camcar se]

I am having two very annoying problems with my 99 5 spd solara. I just got my passenger pillar to stop ratteling now I have a worse rattle. Its coming from underneathe the car, it sounds like a metal plate or some metal vibration and I only hear it when I am at 2,600-2,900 rpm's during a shift and somtimes if I just rev to that point I hear it start buzzin away. Cant find that and least.
2. How is the best way to clean our valve cover where the plugs go in and the intake manifold, I cant clean them. The front valve cover just looks oxidated, y is that, and the intake is getting like a black exhaust soot on it, where would that be coming from, well thanks sorry so long and crazy to read. later

[2002greenhornet]

The first one sounds like it could be an exhaust heat shield rattling. Maybe on the catalytic converter. Sometimes when the car gets some age on it, the spot welds on the cat heat shielding get corroded and separate, causing rattling at certain RPMs. I've fixed this before (not on a Solara) by getting under there and running a couple of small self-tapping stainless steel sheet metal screws through where the welds broke.