Back Glass Rattle Eliminated
#1
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,178

I have owned my Jimmy since new. The back glass has always rattled. I adjusted the latch, used electrical tape. Adjusted the tail gate and any thing else I could think of. Well I had an idea in my head that if the catch in the tail gait was not so narrow that it could secure the glass much better. I measured the Dia. of the latch on the back glass and the opening in catch when the catch was in the closed position. The Dia. of the latch was 1/4". The Dia. of the catch opening is 5/16 ". However the end of the catch is narrower. I went to Home Depot and bought a 1/8ipsX 2" brass pipe nipple. The inside Dia. of the pipe nipple is exactly 1/4" and the outside Dia. was over 5/16". First I ran a 1/4" drill bit to ensure it was nice fit. Then I used my bench grinder to mill the outside Dia. untill the pipe nipple would fit inside the catch on the tail gate. Once that was done I used a dremel tool to cut the pipe nipple almost in half to allow the I/4" drill bit to enter and exit the remaining half without binding. I then cut the length of the cut away pipe nipple to match the width of the tail gate latch. I then used crazy glue to secure the cut away pipe nipple in the catch of the tail gate. Once the glue was set I also took some heat shrink tubing split in half wrapped it around the latch on the back glass used the crazy glue to glue the ends of the heat shrink tubing back together. Used my heat gun to shrink the tubing. Now the back glass has a larger surface are being secured by the catch and there is no metal to metal contact. Enclosed is a picture of thetail gate with the brass cut away nipple in the catch and of the back glass with the heat shrink tubing.
#2
Cool, I know another little project I need to do now
#3
Super Member
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,178

My Jimmy is totally free of shakes and rattles for the first time since I bought it. The only twoproblems that has been there since new was the mystery or phantom wiper swipe and the back glass rattle. I found the TSB for the wipers and had that fixed late last year.I also had the TSB for the tailgate accomplished. As far as the back glass rattle I have tried everything possible such as adjusting the tail gate,adjusting the latch, using tape and WD-40 nothing worked for long. The fix i implemented last weekend has been working like a charm. This is my daily driver and I have about a 70 mile comute each day (Total) and if sounds like I am driving a new car. So far if have about 150 miles on this fix. I will report back once I have accumilated a lot more miles to see if this is truly a permanent fix.
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