Rattles… possibly from my bonnet.

[poison]

Hey all,

Ive got some annoying rattles from the front of the car I
have been unable to trace. Last night I noticed that the
bonnet hinges have quite a lot of play in them and when the
bonnet is closed as they have no force on them they are
quite free to move. If I grab a corner of the bonnet and
move it up and down there is a fair amount of play and it
gives a fairly decent knock on both sides. This is
undoubtedly the cause of some of my rattles (and hopefully
all).

If I could get the bonnet off I could re-bush the hinges,
but it looks like the bolts are under the front guards. My
car painter mate once said never remove an MX5 bonnet or
youll spend the rest of your working life trying to align
it again not sure if this is strictly true, but I would
imagine its a mission to realign as you can only tighten
the bolts when the bonnet is open.

I cant imagine Im the only person with this problem on
their car. So any thoughts please? There are some rubber
pads at the inside of the guards where the bonnet closes but
they dont seem to do much, maybe this is part of the
problem.

Cheers

Gazza
PO1SON

[zorruno]

on 12/11/2004 12:04 p.m. poison wrote:

Ive got some annoying rattles from the front of the car

I cant imagine Im the only person with this problem on
their car. So any thoughts please? There are some rubber
pads at the inside of the guards where the bonnet closes but
they dont seem to do much, maybe this is part of the
problem.

There seems to be a common problem with older MXs and the seating of the
bonnet on those pads which may or may not be causing your rattle.

I had this problem and firstly wrapped insulation tape around the D clip
on the front centre of the bonnet. The tape eventually rips away though
so needs continual replacement.

Then I bought some round rubber 'bump stops' (self adhesive buttons used
as feet for glass place mats, hobby project boxes etc) and stuck them
inside the rubber stops that the bonnet sits on. This raises the stops
a few mm which seemed to stop the rattle for me. I've got more of these
at home so I'll get you a couple.

cheers
zorruno