Dash Rattle Fixed!!

[CJMDWYER]

I Have had the rattle from the dash/tweeter area for a while now. I have tried the foam tape on the tweeters and it worked a little bit, but came back after a couple of miles. Last night I was driving home with the windows up and it was driving me nuts. I pushed on the tweeter and it went away, but it also went away if I pushed on the dash next to the tweeter. I pulled the tweeter out of the dash while driving and sat it on the passenger seat. The noise was still there. I pulled up on the tweeter wire and it went away.......... When I got home I felt inside the hole in the dash. I noted that the tweeter harness was clipped to the inner structure of the dash. There is the outer "shell" that we see from the outside, and also an inner structure as well. In the corner of the tweeter hole that is toward the center of the vehicle and closest to the driver, the outer shell and inner structure come together. You can feel this if you stick your hand in there. You can also feel that they both flex a little with slight pressure. I made a wedge out of some cardboard, ( I will go back in later with a foam wedge of some type) and shoved it into this little wedge of a gap. Went for a drive, and no noise at all! I then popped the tweeter back in and drove over the same roads I always drive on the way home and still no noise. I drove all the way to work today with the radio off and windows up (boring as hell) and it was a silent as a tomb. I will make a foam wedge now, and also inspect the passenger side dash area for this same situation as well. I sometimes hear a simular noise from over there, ( I probably hear it now due to the driver side being silent!) but not nearly as bad. I will take pics if this problem has plagued anyone else.

[e_piph_a_ny]

Yes, pics requested! I have the same sitch; first the tweeter rattle, applied foam to insulate, rattle gone. Now rattle has returned and re-applying the foam does not work.

[bobpres]

Please ... please ... please post some pics!!! This rattle is driving me up the wall!!!

[CJMDWYER]

I will work on this after work tonight. It might be hard to get pics of this area, but I will try. If you pop the tweeter cover off and unplug the harness, you can feel around in there and see what I am talking about. I got the idea after pulling up on the tweeter harness made the rattle go away. The tweeter harness it attached by a clip to the "inner structure" of the dash. Pulling up on it held tension between the inner and outer dash panels and stopped the noise. The inner panel touches the outer panel toward the corner of the tweeter hole that is toward the center of the vehicle cabin, and this inner panel gradually drops away from the outer panel as it heads toward the left side of the dash/a-pillar area. Forcing a small wedge in between the inner and outer panels at the "meeting point" seems to eliminate this contact between them. I will try to get pics to better illustrate this.

[kd4z]

Would you say that this rattle could be described as a raspy buzzing vibration sound too? I have this type of noise, but it may be the same thing as your rattle.

To me, a rattle sounds like something that is moving/clunking (something loose) but my buzzing vibration noise is something that is moving at a much smaller amplitude like the TSB for this relating the grille touching the speaker frame.
(with the radio off)

[accordingtoome]

OHHH man i can't stand it anymore.. mine is in the glovebox area. Ohh its driving me up the wall. i don't have tweeters though as i have the RTX. I did switch out my whole system though. but still i have no tweeters. do you think this is the same problem for me too?

[Jet Pack]

Originally Posted by accordingtoome

OHHH man i can't stand it anymore.. mine is in the glovebox area. Ohh its driving me up the wall. i don't have tweeters though as i have the RTX. I did switch out my whole system though. but still i have no tweeters. do you think this is the same problem for me too?

Did you pull out the tweeters? Just looked at the honda website, the RTX and even the RT has 6 speakers. One in each door and tweeters in the dash.

[schwejo]

Hi, I’m pretty sure I have, or hopefully had, a similar rattle around the right tweeter area that was only there in the morning on the way to work. When things warmed up the rattle went away. I had done the same as others with felt trying to isolate it to the tweeter, but it only ever seemed to help a little or temporarily help. Since my rattle was only before the truck had a chance to warm up inside, it was always out of mind until the next morning.

I think you solved it. After reading CJMDWYER’s post I looked at it again and I believe the structure that may be rattling in mine is the air ducting that does appear to touch the bottom of the dash in a location that you can reach with your fingers after removing the tweeter. I used about a 6 inch square piece of felt and worked one corner of the felt from the tweeter location back towards the center of the dash and then fairly loosely pressed the remainder in. It would be hard to get much of a picture but I could see most of what was going on with a dental mirror. I’ve been two days so far without a rattle coming from the right glove box, tweeter, airbag area. Hope it stays that way

[e_piph_a_ny]

Well the rattle was killing me, so after researching for "dash rattle" on the ROC, I removed the right tweeter cover and un-hooked the glove compartment for clear access under the dash.

I grunted around for about a hour. I could not duplicate what CJMDWYER did in the first post. The outer shell and inner structure were not flimsy at all. I poked around under the dash, thru the glove compartment opening, to see if any wiring, hoses, were causing the rattle. No apparent success so I re-attached the glove compartment and re-applied new foam tape to the tweeter cover.

This morning, no noise ! Not sure what I did, but I must have inadvertently cleared out potential rattle areas. Keeping fingers crossed.

[Pizza Man]

Originally Posted by e_piph_a_ny

I grunted around for about a hour. I could not duplicate what CJMDWYER did in the first post.

I believe CJMDWYER was describing his fix for the driver's side tweeter. Either way, your rattle is gone!