wow i cant wait to crawl under the car when i take delivery. im bringing a jack

 

Haha my pictures are going to be famous. The most viewed 05 bell housing in existance! B)

I should send a bill to Ford... I want a cut of the warranty labor costs.

 

Andella - your noise could be one of several items that I have found on my '05. 1st suspect is the missing inspection plate lower cover bolts as that is a very loud and noticable tinny sounding rattling noise, then the Parking brake handle - when not engaged rests on a metal stop that transmits tranny vibrations into the handle and will cause it to vibrate - see my post (above) to Dozer about how to cure this noise. Then I found a narrow metal (vertical) brace that is located behind the glove box (on the right side) - it is tack welded between the glove box support bracing and the metal "roll bar" looking rod that runs behind the dash. Mine was not welded very well and it was vibrating and buzzing - a bit of DynaMat Extreme wrapped around it and no more noise. There is still an intermittent "buzzing" kind of sound that I hear every once in a while coming from behind the center stack area - I have not been able to locate that yet and it is so infrequent - I can live with it. Good luck - hate to hear they are tearing into your dash.....
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Today I checked the parking brake with no luck... pulled apart the centerstack, took out the radio and checked everything out behind the dash... no luck there either. I am missing the lower inspection plate bolts but it seems pretty stiff and I don't think that is where the noise is coming from but I am going to take it back to the dealer soon and cross my fingers. This darn noise is driving me up the wall.

Thanks for your suggestions Hotlap, I will certainly let you know the cause if I can ever locate it.

 

My dealer states that the bolts are supposed to be missing! They hold the debris cover for the automatics, and have no purpose on the standards. I think he was hoodwinking me though.

 

Haha did you ask him if the horrible loud rattle was part of the design too?

You should send that guy's name to Ford. I'm sure their PR dept would enjoy talking to him. Talk about adding insult to injury.

 

Submitted for your viewing pleasure...



My buddy, Greg at Performance Automotive and Sound here in Austin took the time to help me solve our troubles with the missing bolts.

If you live in the Austin area be sure to check out www.performanceautomotiveandsound.com for 05 aftermarket parts and installation.

P.S. - NO MORE RATTLE!

 

you da man!

 

Looking at that photo above, is it difficult to change the oil on this car? I assume that is the drain plug right at the rear of the pan.

 

This should be a seperate thread... but

Oil change is VERY easy. Drain bolt is perfectly located. The picture might be deceiving in that respect as the oil pan is actually a little lower than the bell housing.

 

Everyone that I've talked too does not have these 2 bolts either. Mine doesn't rattle though. If it did, I would tend to look at the other bolts for that plate to make sure they were tight. I guess the bolts are not really necessary. I'd still prefer to have them though.

 

I like your logical line of thought, I had considered the same. However, as you can see in the picture of the plate itself it doesn't matter how tight the upper bolts are the bottom half of the plate is thin metal and succeptible to vibration without the bolts to secure it. The good thing is that once you car DOES start to make the noise you will know exactly where to go.



As for them not being neccessary, I figure you could get away with using 4 lug nuts to hold your wheels on if you really wanted to also. B)

 

Well, my dealer is still searching for the bolts, so I put the 10mm ones I brought home from work in today. Rattle is GONE!! While I was at it, I painted the rear calipers red to match the front ones I did last month.

 

05silverGT

I just saved 4 dollars plus tax. Plus, one dealer would only sell me 4 at a time. :notnice:

My life is almost in order now.

 

My dash squeaks like he.ll, sounds like someone is rubbing styrofoam together, I'm about ready to take it back to the dealership and tell them to fix this crap, but they'll probably tell me my off-road exhaust caused it and void my warranty.

 

Yeah, go figure Bucky.
I just took my baby in and told them about the rattle I have in the dash. He told me that there's a good chance that once they take the dash apart it'll just cause more rattle noise. Talk about customer service.

 

I put my car on the ramp today, and I'm missing those bolts too :angry:

I didn't feel like wasting time to set up an appointment with the dealership, so I just went to the Advance Auto and got a couple of 10mm x 1.5mm thread (20 mm length) bolts for $1.86. Many thanks 05silverGT for posting the pics and the bolt size. I put a little anti-seize compound on the threads for good measure. I never had the rattling sound that some have reported, but I feel better now...and hey...my first bolt-on mod too .

Anyways, I'm glad I didn't turn in one of my customer satisfaction surveys yet, I'm definitely going to mark this down :notnice:

 

Glad we could help.

Here is the info once again in case anyone missed it.

 

by the way... I was in the dealership taking care of some stuff and saw the TSB for the bolts with my own eyes. It is in the computer and they ARE instructed to replace the two bolts. FYI in case you hear otherwise.

 

I was at the dealership today specifically for the rattle on cold starts.

I showed the tech the pic's I downloaded from this site. Sure enough I had two missing bolts on the bell housing when they got my car on jacks.

The guy looked it up in the computer and apparently their is a notice or note, not a recall (should be) about the two bolts. He told me they are optional, or something along those lines. Am I smoking something here? I don't know anyone who opt to have two missing bolts!

Anyways, good news is that they did order the parts for me and next week it should be problem solved.

I must say, that they were very impressed that I knew the exact problem without looking under the car. So a big thankyou is in order for all you on this thread. Keep it up.

Nick

 

Some one should e-mail this topic and that pic to ford :bang: or even better <span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>every one</span></span> should e-mail ford