Dash rattle from airbag cover area

[rattles]

I have seen a similar recent post but as the noise in my car is from a specific location I have started a new post. I have checked the TSB's covering dash rattles it has details on how to fix it but no details on how to access the area directly behind the air bag cover..

If anyone has removed the cover I would appreciate any info. Is it best to remove the airbag cover or could I access that area by removing the horseshoe panel around the aircon controls and vents.

If I press on the dash between the airbag cover and the horseshoe panel the noise stops [photo of that area attached]. Mine is a RHD 99 c2. ROW.

Thanks

Glenn

[Loren]

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?s...ost&p=47193

Alos, did you see section 5 (Noise in area 5 – Creaking and/or rattling noises on the panel for passenger’s airbag.) of TSB 1/00 7018 -- dated June 30 2000?

[rattles]

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?s...ost&p=47193

Alos, did you see section 5 (Noise in area 5 – Creaking and/or rattling noises on the panel for passenger's airbag.) of TSB 1/00 7018 -- dated June 30 2000?

Thanks for that Loren, I did not see the one dated June 30/2000, thought I had all the details with dash rattle TSB's.

From your post it looks like the airbag cover comes out attached to the airbag not as a separate piece, is that correct. The noise I have is best describbed as a sizzle, only does it on coarse road surfaces at certain speeds. It may be coming from just behind the horseshoe so I would prefer to start there, I have the removal details for that part but i am not sure if it gives any access when it is taken off. Do you have any photos or drawing that show it removed.

[amcleod1]

Recognising this is an old topic, but today I resolved a very similar problem.

I had a clicking noise coming from between the centre vent cut-out and the passenger airbag cut-out just as described above. However I had the passenger airbag and centre vent out for other reasons so I know these were not contributing to the noise. After a lot of finger pushing around the area and dash shaking it turned out that noise could only be due to the separation of bonding between the two of the layers of the dashboard construction localised to a small section about 60mm x 60mm.

From what I can tell by looking at the airbag cutout, the 1-2mm thick dash leather is bonded to a 0.5mm thick black'ish coloured fairly rigid plastic-like substrate, which is in turn bonded to a 5-10mm thick greyish coloured plastic-like solid form work which then bolts/screws to the metal dash support frame. What I have deduced, is that the bond between the blackish substrate and the greyish form work had given way, and with the vibration induced by driving over bumps would open and close the bond as the glue must remains tacky - hence the ticking noise. If you take a close look at the contours of the leather in this area you can see that its all concave adding stress to the bonding.

To fix it, I drilled 5 holes through the greyish form work using a 1.3mm pin drill twirled between my fingers from inside the centre vent out area into the 60mm x 60mm section where the clicking seems worst. I drilled very carefully, (1) checking the depth often to ensure that I did not drill through the black substrate and the leather and (2) kept a finger on the leather above where I was drilling to ensure I'd feel if I was too close the drilling through. You can easily feel when you're through the greyish form work as I felt the drill bit enter an air gap and could feel the drill tip tapping against the harder black substrate. Once the holes were drilled, I then used a 19 gauge blunt needle to inject epoxy into the gap to fill and re-bond the surfaces. Be quick before the epoxy sets in the syringe.

After a few minutes to set, repeated the same finger pushing around the area and dash shaking and no more clicking noise.

Hope this helps someone else one day.