The steering shroud has been particularly annoying on our '92 19D, and has ended up getting constant pokes, a raised knee, and while-driving investigations about where the creaking (and occasional rattle) was coming from.
Months ago, opened up the shroud, and put some pipe insulation around a relay and a connector, to stop them clonking loose on the lower part of the shroud. Clonks gone, but creaking continued.
One particularly annoying creak would come from the small 'shelf' below the instrument window, with any movement of it producing lots of noise. Shoving a finger down the gap between the instrument window and the shelf would shut it up, but not for long.
Action today, which looks successful . . .
1. The small shelf (held in place with two small csk torx on the underside) was creaking where its forward edge rests on a plastic moulding running the full width of the instruments. A length of black gaffa/duct tape on the underside of the shelf surface silenced it. A few more small pieces of gaffa were added into the hollow of the shelf (at the ends) for good measure.
2. The dimmer rheostat was found to be creaking/clonking in its snap-in aperture, and not a particularly snug fit. A length of pvc insulation tape was put round the dimmer's mating surface, and that shut that up.
3. 'Lights on' sounder found to bounce around on its plastic clip. Small piece of foam added to pad-out the movement.
4. Both upper and lower main shroud halves engage together with a shallow tongue/groove running all around — plastic-on-plastic again, and allowing movement (and creaks). The same arrangement exists for the two small insert panels for the lighting switch and wiper stalk/IGN switch.
Adding tape on these slender edges was not an option, and likely too thick anyway. Decided to give one coat of PVA to each joint. Allowed to dry, PVA goes colourless, and is easily wiped off. Allowed to dry for 10mins before assembling.
All looks good, and a snugger fit for all the parts. Time will tell, as always.
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One of the criticisms of the BX interior was its massive use of plastic panels, and nothing wrong with that as such.
What's not good is the way many of these are optimistically fitted together, with cost obviously in mind. Interesting to compare the plastic dash of BX with that of the XM, where most of the plastic-to-plastic joints were given a thin felt lining, to prevent just this issue.
XM and Xantia got this right, as did ZX. All were exceptionally well screwed together; lessons learned!
