I don't post about this car much, because I did all the major work on it before I was really active on GRM, but I have a '99 C5. I've done a couple HPDEs in it, but it's mostly just a street car for the summers here in Minnesota. It's done 175k miles and was not treated kindly by its previous owners, which is fine, because I don't really worry about how it looks since it was already covered in rock chips and scratches when I got it. At the time I bought it (10 years ago now!) it was the cheapest running, driving C5 I had ever seen. I've put a ton of work into it since then; 100% mechanical, 0% cosmetic. Here it is after driving in the rain, not washed, parked next to a co-worker's car that also has a removable roof:
Last week, another co-worker with a nice, clean, low-mileage C6 Z06 needed an O2 sensor replaced. I said I'd be happy to take care of it, and told him to just drop off his C6 and take my C5 for a while. I figured it'd be fun to trade cars; he'd just gotten headers and a tune done and I wanted to check it out, and it's always interesting to get someone else's perspective on one of my cars. When we traded back, he had two notes:
- My car is lower than his and scrapes in places his doesn't. Yeah, no surprise there.
- The rattle inside the driver's door is pretty annoying. Huh? Oh, that...
For as long as I can remember, the driver's door and window in my C5 has just felt kinda wrong. The window seemed too loose inside the door, and I couldn't get it to seal against the roof very tightly, so the wind noise was pretty bad, and it leaked in the rain. The window rattled inside the door whether it was up or down. I figured I was going to have to replace the whole window regulator and/or track, and I just didn't want to deal with it. It didn't prevent me from driving the car, so I ignored it...for years.
I hadn't been enjoying the car as much this spring, but I couldn't really put my finger on why. It felt old and busted. I was thinking it might be time for new shocks, since every bump in the road seemed harsher than it used to. Suddenly, after trading cars and talking with my co-worker, it clicked. The berkeleying door rattle! I got inspired (read: pissed off), dropped my other plans for the afternoon, and made it my mission to fix that rattle. After pulling off the door panel and doing lots of reaching around inside the door and wiggling stuff around, I found the culprit. The rubber bushing between the window track and the bottom of the door was just...gone.
Here's a picture (which I only took after I'd already fixed it, unfortunately). Imagine the pin coming up from the bracket on the bottom of the door is just bare steel, rattling around in a hole in the bottom of the stamped steel window track:
I thought about 3D printing a replacement...nah, that would take too long. I wanted to be done today. I ended up shaving down one side of a rubber wiring harness grommet, coating it in black RTV, and wedging that between the track and the pin:
Then I RTV'd up what was left of the original bushing and stuck it over the top of the pin just for good measure. Closer shot of the completed fix:
I put the door back together and took the car out for a drive. OMG, yes! It feels like a different car. It does not need new shocks. If I'm lucky, maybe the wind noise and water leaks will even be reduced. For now, I'm just really enjoying driving it again, more than I have in a long time, because I don't have to listen to the door rattle over every bump, which I told myself didn't bother me until someone else pointed it out.
So, here's to no longer putting up with the annoying broken thing because it doesn't stop you from driving the car. I bet most of us have a few of those. May you be similarly inspired (or pissed off) to fix yours. It might make a bigger difference than you think.
