Rattle noise from the dash

[dpehlivanov]

Hi, guys,
I have a really annoying rattle noise from the dash while i'm driving trough some little road bumps and holes (the roads here are not very good...) and i can't find the problem. Some of the PO's has installed an italian version A/C, so i guess the dash have been removed and installed again, but obviously not exactly how it should be. I guess somewhere it's not attached very well, or it's not attached at all. While i'm driving trough some bumps the whole middle part of the dash where are the vents vibrates really annoying and i hear that rattle sounds.
First i'm trying to find the problem without removing the dash because it's a lot of work.

So can you tell me where to have a look and which are the attaching points. A friend of mine told me that there are should be some bolts or screws at the bottom of the middle part (where are vents, buttons, audio, etc.) which were very hard to put back on the car. I was trying to find them, but i couldn't find anything.

So can you tell me where to have a look or do you have some other advices and if i'll have to reinstall the dash can you give me some tips how i can isolate all sounds which are coming from the dash.

Thank you and sorry if my english was very bad...

[Jim320i]

It could be the foam that has perished around the heater matrix box which is causing the rattling noise, but the only real way is to fully remove the dash and then refit, unless you can narrow down the sounds location.

The dash itself is only bolted in at either end, but with lots of other fixing attached. So your noise could be anything.

[clipper]

When the Diavia aftermarket A/C is installed, the pipework that is under the dash rises over the top of the heater box.

This means that when the dash is reinstalled it can't be slid into place horizantally, which makes the locating of the central dash mount into the clip below the windscreen virtually impossible. So it's likely that this clip has either been removed or is not doing its job.

I think that removing the windscreen and pushing down on the front of the dash whilst its reloctaed my solve this problem, but I have not got round to doing this with mine yet.

A temporary "fix" could be to unbolt the mounts at each end, move the dash slightly and retighten the bolts, this has worked fro me to a large extent.

[dpehlivanov]

Thank you, guys. When i have some time i will remove the dash and will try to find the problem and i will write back here if i find it.