SOLVED! Horrible rattles from upper part of the body. Videos and how to fix

[crenca]

...I would go back to the dealer to show them how it's bad to make assumptions. They should treat every customer like they want to keep them as a repeat customer and saying all Broncos do that was obviously wrong

...You might want to forward a link to this thread to your service advisor and their manager so they can use it as a reference for future customers complaining of the same issue

Talking to the dealership might not be in vain...maybe...in another universe!

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[Mac92gli]

I have a hard top that I never remove. Would those parts and bolts only be on the soft tops?

Good question that I hope someone else can add the answer to. Curious myself.
I suspect that the hard tops have the same or slightly different pieces. They keep the window seals in place

 

[Rob_Broncowski]

Thanks for the heads up. That noise sounds very familiar. I always thought it was coming from the car seats in back but now I'm not so sure. Looks like I'll be pulling these panels off this weekend to confirm. I'll be curious to see if this impacts the window rattle when I open the door since these brackets interface with the seals.

 

[Sparkherd]

Hope the videos are working. For some reason the browser I'm on hates this site and they're not playing for me now

I can't get ANY media content to post on here...I just figgered I'm being censored.
What bowser are you using?!?
WEBSITES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE AGNOSTIC!!!
Browser should NOT matter!!!

 

[Mac92gli]

I can't get ANY media content to post on here...I just figgered I'm being censored.
What bowser are you using?!?
WEBSITES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE AGNOSTIC!!!
Browser should NOT matter!!!

I usually use Brave but I also tried it on Chrome. I think it's a server issue with the forum.

I've uploaded the rattle video to YouTube for posterity -

 

[Soulstice]

This rattle shown in the video below has been driving me so crazy for months that my wife and I have gotten into horrible arguments about dumping the truck, no matter the loss (it's a 24 big bend 4 door we purchased last August). Any time the suspension hit a bump at an offset, or if only one side of the truck hit something, such as a sunken manhole cover, this rattle was next to your ears. It made highway driving infuriating if there were a lot of expansion joints for bridge crossings.

I've literally spent hours pulling trim and fiddling around with trying to track this down. I've thought for months that there was broken pieces of metal or rivets inside the top bows. Along the way I tried to get my wife to let me buy a hard top. My dealer's service advisor drove with me and said "They're all like this, it's unlikely Ford will allow us to do anything".
Today I figured it out. And it wasn't anything I suspected.
I had the top open and was banging on things and pulling on things and noticed that these black rails that are visible from above when the top is open had some movement to them

Notice the silver "dots" in the vid above - some of those are locating posts, and some of them are threaded posts. There are 6 threaded posts on each side on a 4 door that hold these rails tight to the body. After pulling some trim apart this is what I found -

All 3 of the nuts I could see initially were about to fall completely off.

Thanks for sharing this journey. I have a rattle. Driving me bonkers, it’s not this, but I appreciate finding and fixing these. I hope you keep her and keep fixing.

 

[Mjasi3]

have a heard top... following to see if this is a problem with them also...

 

[MPN22BroncoOBX]

Well, I wanted to send this thread to the account on here that is supposed to be someone from Ford. But I'm not able to send it a PM.
If someone from Ford DOES see this, I'd like to have a conversation about the whole saga.

Believe you me, FORD does not give a shit

 

[Darrell]

I have a 2021 Badlands with this same rattle it’s coming from the passenger side. I thought it was the windows not seating properly only happens when I hit a good bump in the road, It sounds like the top of the window is slapping the frame, it drives me nuts and it seems to be getting louder. I will definitely be looking into this and thanks for your write up on this.

 

[Gotchaa]

This rattle shown in the video below has been driving me so crazy for months that my wife and I have gotten into horrible arguments about dumping the truck, no matter the loss (it's a 24 big bend 4 door we purchased last August). Any time the suspension hit a bump at an offset, or if only one side of the truck hit something, such as a sunken manhole cover, this rattle was next to your ears. It made highway driving infuriating if there were a lot of expansion joints for bridge crossings.

I've literally spent hours pulling trim and fiddling around with trying to track this down. I've thought for months that there was broken pieces of metal or rivets inside the top bows. Along the way I tried to get my wife to let me buy a hard top. My dealer's service advisor drove with me and said "They're all like this, it's unlikely Ford will allow us to do anything".
Today I figured it out. And it wasn't anything I suspected.
I had the top open and was banging on things and pulling on things and noticed that these black rails that are visible from above when the top is open had some movement to them

Notice the silver "dots" in the vid above - some of those are locating posts, and some of them are threaded posts. There are 6 threaded posts on each side on a 4 door that hold these rails tight to the body. After pulling some trim apart this is what I found -

All 3 of the nuts I could see initially were about to fall completely off.

This is timely. I have what sounds like a screw in the rear passenger trim that rolls forward and backwards on stop and go or braking, or up hills, my guess is this screw may have completely come off and is free rolling inside the trim

 

[mikec426]

have a heard top... following to see if this is a problem with them also...

He had a heard top too. Wanted it to be an unheard top. I’ll see myself out…

 

[Mac92gli]

This is timely. I have what sounds like a screw in the rear passenger trim that rolls forward and backwards on stop and go or braking, or up hills, my guess is this screw may have completely come off and is free rolling inside the trim

I don't think the nuts can fall completely off the posts because the trim stops them. Not 100% sure though. Many of mine were pretty much completely wound down to the bottoms of the studs.
If one did come completely off I think it would fall down into the B pillar trim eventually.

 

[GRONKO]

Reviving this thread as after 3 years and 36,000 miles, I finally spent the 45 minutes to tighten the nuts. 10 of the 12 nuts were loose and right at the bottom of the long bolts. Appreciate the info posted for fixing the rattle.

 

[mjp2]

Reviving this thread as after 3 years and 36,000 miles, I finally spent the 45 minutes to tighten the nuts. 10 of the 12 nuts were loose and right at the bottom of the long bolts. Appreciate the info posted for fixing the rattle.

And thank you for the thread bump! I didn't see this thread the first time around and will be checking those bolts during my lunch break today. Anything that's loose will get sone blue loctite when I'm home.

As for folks with soft top rattles from the same area that aren't this fix, I periodically need to replace the felt pads Ford uses for vibration isolation where the flip-back hinge secures to the bracket. Rattles like mad when the felt shifts but it's such an easy fix that I'm fine messing with it twice a year.

 

[GRONKO]

I should mention that I have a factory mic hard top and picked up a factory soft top that I swap to in the summer. It rattled when I only had the hard top.

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