Curious if any of you famliar with the 97-03's is willing to take a guess at what is rattling inside my drivers door. I figure this is one of those "it's been known to happen" type things. The reason I'm asking - I do intend to take the door apart to fix it - but would like to at least be prepared as to what parts I need or might need to buy to fix it.

I'm guessing its either the locking mechanism or the window. I have both power locks & power windows. It rattles when the window is up and when I close the door.

Thanks for any insight anyone may provide!

 

could be one of the metal rods for the power locks. sometimes those little plastic clips break & allow movement of the rod.

 

If the weather stays cold this weekend, I may dig into that & see for myself. Thanks for the heads up about the clip. I'll keep an eye out for that.

 

the rear track on your window regulator is a big problem with these trucks. its a 12 mm bolt that rattles loose. most of the time it happens when someone changes a door lock actuator, it is moved out of the way for better clearance and if the bolt dosent have loctite on it during reinstall, they have a tendancy to rattle out.

 

I dug in & discovered the problem(s). It was two things: the first was, after removing the plastic door panel, on the left side, the bolt that holds the power window track was no longer fastened to anything. The sheet metal that the bolt was secured to deteriorated, so it was just flailing around usecured. I used a metal bracket I had laying around as sort of a washer to secure it into place.

The second thing I noticed was a piece of metal rod that connected the key lock cylinder to something. It, and a black plastic clip were just dangling. Since I couldn't figure it out - and I always use the keyless remote, I just disconnected it and put it with my other extra truck pieces parts. No, the key no longer works in the drivers side door now, but, if the keyless stopped working, I could always use the passenger side key cylinder. Maybe someday I'll fix that when if I/when I understand how everything is supposed to be setup.

No rattles anymore now tho!

 

glad to see you got it cleared up.