The 1¢ and $3 Door Rattle Fixes

I can't stand rattles. Especially ones that squeak. The suicide doors both rattle and squeak when not slammed, and I mean SLAMMED shut. And even then, mine have started squeaking anyway.

So I took a few minutes and stared at the problem, and a solution started to imerge. Here was my first "fix"



Yup. That's a paper towel wrapped thru the eyelet where the door engages the body. You close the door and the latch operates just as normal, but no rattle and no squeak! The door even closes more solidly-seeming. And best of all you don't have to slam 'er home. Just close it with normal force and you're all set.

Obviously paper towels aint a long term solution. So I went to my sporting goods store and bought some sports tape for $3. This stuff is 1" wide, made of a cotton blend, is made to resist water and comes in several colors. Black is the obvious choice.



There's a bit of a trick here though, in finding the sweet spot between a solid closing door, and one that you have to yank on to open again. If the wrap is too thick (that pic turned out to be a wrap that was too thick), you'll have to rip on the door to open it again. I removed a layer at a time till I got it just right (for my tastes, this ends up being 3-4 layers of tape).

Its kinda cool too in that the regular doors seem to close more solidly as well. I guess it makes sense; their latch point, the suicide door, isn't moving around any more thanks to the tape. So the door just closes home and stays put.

Not a bad solution for $3!

very nice I love this mod thanks for sharing !!

Haven't had an issue yet but, I'm all for it!

on my way to ****'s now!!! Hate those noises!!!

Thanks Big J

Thanks for the heads up on that Big J!:thumbsup:
I'll keep that in mind if I start hearing a rattlely door.

nice solution bro...

Just a quick update:

The door rattle fix is working wonderfully. The door is rock solid even after a couple dozen open/closes.

But...

I've noticed that the inside trim, where the vertical plastics meet the painted metal, toward the back of the door/truck, is now rubbing and squeaking. No idea if its coinsidental or if the slight change in door angle? might have something to do with it.

No biggie to solve, actually. I used a pry tool (I used a trim spoon) to pull the plastic away from the metal just enough to slip a strip of the same black cotton tape between the plastic and metal. The squeak is gone.

But WTF?

That's my kind of fix: Find the problem area, think simple, and do it to it. In my best Tim Allen voice: Aough, aough aouth aough aough!!!!

just did it...much more solid feeling. Now I can charge the whoops even faster!!!!

I will add an update. I was getting a lot of door rattling / seal squeaking off-road, especially at TRR 2012. I had first installed the surgical tubing in the door seals (as shown here: http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f10/door-seal-fix-surgical-tubing-11515/ ), and that helped some - I was still getting some rattle / seal squeak at TRR 2013. Then I remembered this trick, so I ordered some black cloth athletic tape and applied it on the strikers as BigJ described above. I can definitely say that the problem is fixed!! I didn't have any door rattle / seal squeak at Raptoberfest. It was definitely worth the 15 minutes it took to do this.