Some background...
For about a year now, I've had a rattle coming from my rear tailgate window when the window was not all the way up or down, i.e. it would not rattle if the window was completely open or complete closed, but anywhere in between, it would rattle. It's anoying, but not a big deal.

Now, onto the story...
I was washing my car last night and noticed that my rear wiper was very loose (the post/arm/thing that goes into the door). So loose that I was able to pull the wiper away from the tailgate about 1". In doing so, I could hear something rattle/rub inside the tailgate. I took of the platic door panel on the inside of the tailgate, then removed both metal panels. That exposed the window rollup mechanism and the wiper motor. I had to have the window rolled up to access the wiper motor. The wiper motor is held in place by 2 10mm bolts. One was loose, the other had come all the way (no threads holding it in). It had loosed up that much. The only thing holding it to the bracket were 2 foam washer/pad things. With a little bit of effort, I was able to realign the bolt with the hold, screw it back in, and snug it down. The wiper arm is no longer loose, and the window rattle appears to be gone.

 

I have a similar problem. I will look into that.

 

Great fix!

 

The window rattle fix was purely coincidental. When I tightened up the wiper assembly, I didn't know it was also going to fix the window rattle. I looked around for other loose bolts that I could tighten to fix the rattle, but couldn't find any. It was kind of rainy this morning on the way to work, so I only had the window down for a few minutes, but no rattles. I'll update the status of the window rattle after I have more time with the window down.

BTW... the plastic door panel is held on by those plastic pop-rivet things. But these things are on steroids... it took a lot more umph to get them to pop free than I would have thought. I ended up using wood prybar (see below) to get first couple pop-rivits out. Once the first 2 were out, the rest were easy. Oh, and you'll have to remove the nylon pull handle before the panel will come off.

 

Isn't there an SST to pop those stupid things off? I thought I remembered reading about that somewhere.

 

i'll have to check that out on my 2nd gen i have a rattle to

 

An SST?

 

Drove around all morning with the tailgate window half down on some pretty bumpy roads. No rattle at all (at least not from the window ). Must be that the wiper motor/assembly inside the door was banging against the window when I'd hit a bump.

Much better now, very easy fix now that I know what the problem was.

 

Just joined the forum so I could say thanks for this fix! My '02 4Runner had developed the rattle coming from the window only when it was not all the way up or down. I pulled the panel off and found one of the wiper motor bolts pretty much all the way out but still hanging there...just like the post said. I tightened it down and it's all better. Thanks!