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Dash Rattle On Driver's Side Fixed

cedave

New Member
First Name
Dave
Joined
Feb 14, 2021
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Location
CA
Vehicle(s)
2020 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Willys
Just purchased a 2020 JLU Willys and was immediately annoyed by a tickety little dash rattle that sounded like someone threw some coins behind the dash instrument cluster. It would only happen driving slowly over washboard dirt roads or hitting abrupt cracks in the street. Wife said it's a jeep thing and not to worry about it, just turn up the stereo and leave it be. Well after paying $40k+ for a vehicle, leaving it be doesn't work for me, so I decided to investigate and tear the dash out of the thing.
Be advised, removing the trim pieces to a point where one can remove the instrument cluster is like battling a grizzly bear, Holy $hit!!!!!!!!! On a few of the trim pieces I literally had to use all my strength and swore the plastic trim would be snapped or destroyed in the process, however that is some Tough A$$ plastic. The problem is the little clips that hold the trim pieces on just do not want to release. Also, a few of them wouldn't come off with the trim panel and instead would fall deep into the abyss behind the dash causing you to dig even deeper into the dash just to retrieve the clips.

This is a photo of the dash after removing the speedo and tach instrument cluster.
Jeep Wrangler JL Dash Rattle On Driver's Side Fixed 20210213_135438



What I found was that one of the screws holding part of the plastic dash frame assembly to the aluminum bulkhead in the dash was very loose.
Below is a photo showing the culprit loose screw that I'm pointing at with a screw driver. I applied some RTV behind the heads of the screws and tightened both.
Jeep Wrangler JL Dash Rattle On Driver's Side Fixed 20210213_135351



I further found that the dash cluster bezel is made up of multiple pieces of plastic that are put together by sort of melting them together after inserting one piece through the other with tabs through slots. I found one of the tabs was broken and just barely hanging there.
So the broken tab caused the two pieces of plastic to vibrate against one another.
In order to fix this issue I just spread some RTV on the broken area and any other loose areas I found that could possibly cause a rattle in the future.
The little chrome rings around the speedo and tach are also just snapped into the rest of the bezel and move around quite a bit, so I RTV'd around the little tabs of both of those as well.
Below is a photo of the broken tab I found in the dash cluster bezel.
Jeep Wrangler JL Dash Rattle On Driver's Side Fixed 20210213_135548


Once I retrieved all the missing clips from the abyss of the dash and the RTV had cured I reassembled dash in reverse order and took the 2020 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Willys for a test drive and EUREKA the pesky little rattle is long gone. What A Relief, it was driving me crazy.
Some may say it wasn't worth the trouble but I would say "On the Contrary", those pesky little rattles can drive one MAD!!!!!
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