That's what where talking about. The entire auto trans cover plate which includes the transparent auto selector guide window.
The whole plate needs to be lifted up the selector shaft, the wires and plugs disconnected to fix the squeak I mentioned above.
BTW that plate alone can have about 4 different rattles and squeaks in it.
I even lined and thickned up the back of the long narrow plastic band (with hole in it) with electrical tape to make it stiffer and not shake around.
That worked too.

To remove mine I just dig my nails (mine aren't long, just strong )
into the edges at the power window switch end and lever it up. You won't break anything, just don't scratch the plastic with sharp steel objects like screw drivers.

I've got a million of these rattle fixes. I sometimes think the rear of the dash should be connected to little gel shock absorbers.
I should also open up a panel shop called "BUBBLE AND SQUEAK"
and charge $50.00 an hour to fix them.

Or you could write up a doco for the site outlining all the locations and fixes.

Another quick fix is the fuse box lid. Some of these can get noisy after a while. Electrical tape around bottom tabs that go into the slots, to bulken it up and stop it moving around. The tape is hidden inside when it's closed.

Another location for noise there is inside the fuse box right at the edge hard left, where the board the relays are on meets the lower dash. If you grab the base of the dash around there and move it side to side, you can get a horrible deep squeak there, and see that everything moves around quite a bit. The fix. Jamming a few headless match sticks into the corner between relay board and dash. Then Silicon spray between all the tiny dash tabs that hold the fuse and relay boards in place.

While you have the fuse box lid off. Remove the aircon flow adjuster set into the corner of the dash. And with a long plastic tube connected to your Silicon spray can, looking inside the dash through the hole of the air-con flow adjuster, spray the area's between where the vinyl top part of the dash, rubs up against the lower plastic part of the dash. Try and seperate the edges of the upper and lower parts of the dash by gently applying pressure where these halves meet. That way the Silicon spray will get right in between these edges where a lot noise occurs. Do the outside of these edges too. Wiping excess away with a damp cloth.

Carefully Silicon spray the edges and the corner of the speedo housing inside the dash while your in there, spray the area where the speedo meets the dash, and above it, as the plastic of the speed box rubs against the dash at the rear.

It's pedantic I know, but it works.

Some good tips there Kit.

Maybe this could be used to make a "Dash squeaks and rattles" doco.

now there is a good idea!!

In my old ea I could just lift it out with a plastic scraper, (a screwdriver may mark it) you will need to take the 'T' bar off first and the wiring to the eco-power switch is usually short and needs to be disconected from the back of the switch once you lift the cover slightly. don't forget the cable to the light bulb.

I have a annoying rattle/sqeak coming from a vent somewhere, think its passenger side. Drives me nuts

Outside, i can hear everything the front and rear suspension is doing, its all stuffed haha

Sometimes when the passenger side dash air-flow controller assy. is removed, to expose the dash's interior air duct, and then re-inserted back into the air duct again, sometimes the outer air flow assy. and box doesn't reccess and click back into the interior air duct piping, instead just pushing the black plastic duct furthur back and up into the dash.
So as the outside air-flow controller clicks back into place in the dash right, it pushes the duct back, instead of neatly reccessing inside and the duct sitting around air-flow assy.
Then what happens of course, when going over bumps and things, the interior duct comes into contact with parts of the inside of the dash. Making some pretty horrible noises.

If it is this, and you own an EF Series II with passenger side air-bag. Remove air-bag cover on the dash, remove air-bag assy., following the correct procedure in the manual. Remove the air-flow assy. again, Silicon spray the insides of the air duct where the air-flow box comes into contact, with one hand through the air-bag cover hole in the dash, hold the duct firmly in place as you insert the air-flow controller back into place. Making sure it clicks back into place within the duct.

Last edited by Kit on Sun Jan 30, 2005 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well i havent ever removed anything from behind the dash, but thanks for the heads up, i'll soon go and pull it all apart

If your air-flow adjuster has never been removed it might not be that.
But somethings up in there. Might pay to move things around, gently bang around at certain points, even take the plate of the top to see if the dash mounts haven't cracked and broken in that corner.

As you state silicon spray works well, so does the use of silcon (or what is suitable from a caulking gun) etc between panels when assembling - additionaly it helps to keep things aligned for the future.

I have used a fair bit of Silicon in the dash. But in area's where is has gotten really hot, I've later found that the Silcion has shrunk and gone a bit hard and sticky. And I also found that then when that happens that can become a source of noise in itself. I push a panel against the Shrunken Silicon and I get a very loud plastic sticky noise from it. So I've removed some Silicon where this would occur.

The main spot I get for creaking noises now is the little cover above the steering column behind the steering wheel, sometimes gives a bit. Only real solution I have found is to give it a bit of a whack hehe

Oh and thanks for the compliment Kit, didn't see that last time mate.

Cheers

and I actually found out how to split those two pieces now in case any cares...

That informations always gold Happy.
How doy you do it without breaking it?