tape fixes rattle.......need advice

hihosilverado · January 18, 2005

Hello all, I have had a rattle since new in between the doors of my ext. cab. Only hear it when going slow and the body flexes even over the smallest bumps. Anyhow, the dealer has adjusted everything and still no fix. Yesterday I wrapped a little piece of tape around the first bar of the door striker and would you believe she is silent. So, what gives? Should I try to adjust the door striker or just take it in and tell them what I did and leave it to them? It is an 04 with warranty. I am almost wondering if there is some sort of bumper missing on the latch or something and that adjusting the striker would not help. Please leave your input.

Matt

robot225 · January 18, 2005

My '04 does this too, and I've had it into the dealer with no avail so far. All they want to do is lube the weather stripping.

Let me know what they do if you take it in so I can tell my stealer as well.

May give the tape a shot.

GMCTech · January 18, 2005

In theory the strikers and latches are not adjustable.

The only rattle I've seen is because the back door isn't completely shut. It is very deceiving and is very easy to mistake as closed.

Shut the back door and grab hold of the upper portion of the door and pull and push in and out. If there is any movement the door is not shut.

The only thing that can be done is to be more forceful during closing, especially at the top of the door.

We have seen dozens of these ext. cab trucks that the customer complaint is exactly the same as yours, and all but a choice few were fixed by a little more forceful closing.

Now, back to the original point --> the non-adjustable doors. The strikers are set with recessed screws screwed into nut serts (welded nuts) and can be moved but with a great deal of effort including breaking off the old nut, re-drilling an alignment hole, and welding in a new nut.

The latch is not movable at all.

Try the door shut test mentioned above, I bet it's not closed completely, if it is there are a couple other things that we have found, but this post is long enough. Let us know.

Hope this helps.

hihosilverado · January 18, 2005

Hmmmm, well I loosened up the torx bits per direction of the service manual and adjusted the striker down a bit because I could see a groove in the tape that was being cut by the outside metal of the latch. This fixed the problem........no more rattle. I dont know what you mean by it not being movable, but the service manual illustrates how to adjust it. There is actually a backing plate behind the striker on the the third door, and if you were to remove both hex bolts it would fall into the door. The striker has quite a bit of movement. The light body tech at the dealer where I work (Caddy) told me to adjust it in the manner I did. The hinges are welded, but not the striker. Try to put tape on the outside bar of the striker and see if it helps your problem, if it does then drive it for a day or two and look for where the tape is getting worn through.

robot225 · January 19, 2005

Thanks hihosilverado - I'll give that a shot and see how it works.

GMCTech - I know the rattle you're talking about when the rear door doesn't get closed all the way and you close the front door over it. That rattle is MUCH worse than what we are talking about.

This rattle is very subtle and you can't even hear it from the passenger side of the truck. I wouldn't even know about it if my ear wasn't right next to it every day. Most people probably wouldn't even come in for this sort of noise, but i tend to be rather picky.

Thanks for pointing that out, I'm sure you do get quite a few complaints about the door being not closed all the way.......I only wish mine was that simple.