Stopping a Rattle

I used yesterday afternoon, having finished a short day’s work, to trace and stop a recent rattle and squeak from the left side of the vehicle.

It only occured while driving, and seemed to be coming from the passenger door or sill. A quick check of both revealed no faults, but more careful consideration reminded me that it only occured when the passenger seat was empty. A closer look at the seat mountings showed that one of the seat rail feet had come loose again.

The feet are stamped in during original assembly, with a part of the foot pressed into a square hole in the rail almost like a rivet. With age, it’s common for this fixing to become loose and the seat to rattle. The seat had been previously repaired with a seam wels between the two parts, but this only secures one end of the overlap. In this case, the weld was still intact, but was starting to flex. It was important to secure this foot before the weld snapped.

This was a very simple repair – I simply drilled a 5mm hole through the loose end of the overlap and used a short M5 nut an bolt, with the bolt head uppermost (to preven fouling of the sliding section of seat rail) and the excess of the bolt cut away. The total time for the job, including removal and refitting of the seat, was fifteen minutes. A worthy time investment to maintain my sanity.