Subwoofer rattle - Found location, suggestions to fix

[jabrax]

I think the Ford technician and I have found the final piece of my rattle. First two things have helped - Ford replaced sub (tremendous difference) - they put some isolation material between some of the screw mounting points as seen on one of the screws near my thumb and wedge some neofoam (??) between the sub enclosure and the rear fender.

What we found that actually eliminates the rattle is downward pressure on the plastic enclosure as seen in the picture (fingers pushing down towards the ground.) This is the area where you can hear the rattle outside the vehicle. Has anyone else identified this particular rattle and been able to fix?

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[WheresMyBronco]

Maybe wedge a piece of rubber between the body panel and the sub?

 

[jabrax]

**Update** After putting panels back on, the technician wanted to try one more thing. Went back in and replaced the hardware screws wrapping them in felt-like material (ex. near thumb in picture) and metal clips

Success - only rattle remaining is now the Tail Light. I will play with that

 

[Brian_B]

I took the enclosure out and plastered that entire cavity - and the enclosure - with kilamat. That helped fix mine, although I’m pretty sure in my case one of the bolts was just backed loose. Better to go overkill while you have it apart though

 

[Draughon]

I took out the whole enclosure, put down a layer of Killmat, then put down another layer of thicker sound dampening rubber on TOP of the kill mat, then plastered the enclosure itself, then stuffed polyfill into the enclosure.

Still have a sympathetic rattle at certain frequencies, have since discovered that the Kicker CompR 8'' is too powerful for the air volume in the enclosure, and that's the issue. I'm going to swap out for the Kicker 6.75 and see if it goes away.

Also put thick

Also put thick dryer mounting pads on the bottom bolts and 1'' thick rubber washers on the top. I've done about as much sound dampening as one can do...

 

[jabrax]

Still have a sympathetic rattle at certain frequencies, have since discovered that the Kicker CompR 8'' is too powerful for the air volume in the enclosure, and that's the issue. I'm going to swap out for the Kicker 6.75 and see if it goes away.

Never thought of the lack of air. Interested to see how the smaller sub works.

 

[wizardoforange]

I stole your photo and marked it up because I didn’t think to take any photos when I was working on mine. I had a moderately severe rattle with certain tunes. I located the vibration to the plastic piece right at the tip of the orange arrow I drew. I solved it by tightening the bolt that I circled in orange. To access it, I only removed the rectangular panel beneath the window. A 10 mm flat gear wrench was sufficient.

 

[vicorjh]

I think the Ford technician and I have found the final piece of my rattle. First two things have helped - Ford replaced sub (tremendous difference) - they put some isolation material between some of the screw mounting points as seen on one of the screws near my thumb and wedge some neofoam (??) between the sub enclosure and the rear fender.

What we found that actually eliminates the rattle is downward pressure on the plastic enclosure as seen in the picture (fingers pushing down towards the ground.) This is the area where you can hear the rattle outside the vehicle. Has anyone else identified this particular rattle and been able to fix?

I had installed sorbothane tophat washers to help isolate the sub enclosure from the chassis. This, along with stuffing the rear panel, eliminated the rattles even when driving higher power. Here are the deets on that:

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/jl-audio-8w3v3-4-in-a-modified-oe-sub-enclosure.78805/

 

[JBlanco]

For me, the washer of that bolt rattled even when fully tightened. I added a homemade washer cut out of sound insulation.

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