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A couple of rattles, now a squeak, please help me secure this dash.

832 views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  DougR 
#1 ·
I am quickly finding out that the stock suspension of my car and the roads that I drive 60 miles per day are not mixing well. I drive simply awful highways. The type with missing cement, speedbumps in the middle of the lane, potholes everywhere, bridges with awful trenches of expansion joints. You name the enemy of the car, and I face it on my daily commute.

First it was a couple of rattles in the brackets of the rear seats. What actually fixed that was sticking a couple of athletic socks under the seats so that they no longer moved. Next it was a couple of pieces of the door trim that were rattling. I pulled the screws out, and reattached everything, and it seemed to help.

Still everytime I go over one of these large bumps I can see the entire dash moving and flexing. It's simply awful and really getting on my nerves. The ride is extremely harsh for my environment, and I am really thinking of trying to change the suspension and tire setup, but I know that this can become a neverending "princess and the pea" scenario. I cannot tell you how many suspension setups I went through with my old VW GTI, never being happy till the day the car got tboned. I have taken road trips in this car here and there and have driven on civilized roads. I find that the suspension really works well on nicer surfaces, but sadly I seem to live in a mad max type of environment.

So here I am with the dash now making a sqeaking sound. I have found that if I take my fist and hit the top of the dash directly above the SID, I will hear the squeak, so it is somewhere in this area. But I guess in reality I want to take a weekend and really secure things down everywhere.

Does anyone have any advice, or a link to a good DIY tutorial on pulling apart the dash of one of these cars and securing everything with additional foam, etc..?

Thanks,
Doug
 
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#2 ·
My old VW Diesel was built using a good amount of foam behind the dash - nothing would dare to rattle, but then, I never drove it in Philadelphia but once(and that was enough) in the 93V4..

I guess it is worse now than ever as all of the moneyed men have escaped to suburbia... What few potholes we had in York County did cause the loss of two wheel covers( and those were nice ones too, not cheap(for me, anyway.:cheesy: .)
 
#5 ·
Can anyone explain to me how to get the top of the dash off. I think I found the "squeak" and want to put a little something between the top of the wood panel on the dash, and the softish plastic part that lines the top of the dash. I have found instructions on how to remove the "face" of the dash, and have also found instructions on how to remove the plastic near the windshield to access the speaker grills and such. But what I have not found is how to take the top off, the piece that contains the panel for the passenger side airbag. It all appears to be one huge piece, but I am not sure where to access the screws to pull it off, and whether I have to remove the face of the dash and the plastic dash piece near the windshield to do it.
 
#7 ·
Actually found my squeak...I hope.

I noticed it after I did the aux mod to my factory head unit. I thought it was coming from the A/C unit, but after padding that, I found it wasn't.

From playing with things I found that it was my stereo unit that was bumping on the front of the dash on bumps, causing a squeak. I put a little foam tape on the lip of the stereo face back where it touches the mount, and no more squeaking.
 
#8 ·
I thought mine imporved when I tightened some bolts under the dash. Right now I'm working on some dash rattles that I can't seem to resolve fully. I took off the lower cover panel and tightened a few bolts that are easily accesable. There are three that anchor the steering column plus two others on a structural support beam. I haven't put the panel back on so it would be easy to take a picture if you need one.

One other rattle related item that I discovered deals with ball joints. I asked a local indie mechanic if I needed replacement struts and he said that my clunking noises were probably caused by bad ball joints. After re-lubing the joint boots, the clunking went away and some of the dash rattles lessened. Things are better now but they aren't where I think they should be so I will continue to investigate.
 
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