Help with whistling Amazon

[tsetse1986]

Since I got my GT back on the road, I noticed a pronounced whistle coming mainly from the passenger door quaterlight. I recently took it on the motorway and at motorway speeds the whistle is much louder than the engine & road noise and is very intrusive.

I looked at the fit of the door and its windows and all looks correct. The vertical (trailing) edge of the quarterlight looked to have a slight gap so I laid a temporary bead of sealer along it to see if that quietened it down. This made no difference at all.

Is this a common problem? Any suggestions (well, almost any) gratefully received!

Tim

[Derek UK]

"Duct Tape Diagnostics". Check a section at a time. If you have door mirrors, non standard on a GT, they increase the noise from there due to disturbed air. Have you had the quarter lights completely out, including the mountings in the door? I believe there are some places at the top of the door where they should seat into a Dum-Dum seal to stop some of this problem. Perhaps others who've done this recently could comment.
If you don't have door mirrors, cracking open the quarter lights a fraction doesn't increase the wind noise and helps with ventilation as well as demisting, where as dropping the window a bit makes a lot of noise, right next to your ear, for little effect. The whistle might well stop if you try this with the quarter light.

[tsetse1986]

Thanks for your help Derek. No door / wing mirrors to worry about. Interestingly, I had both doors completely apart to restore the corroded quarterlight surrounds. I did not find any flexible sealant anywhere in the assembly and simply re-riveted the rubber back into the frame.

You mention opening the quarterlights a crack; during my motorway trip I found that opening the driver's quarterlight quietened the passenger side whistle significantly. As you say, opening the wind down windows makes a lot of wind noise.

I have no idea how noisy the car was before restoration as it was undrivable, but I'm sure it should not whistle this much!

I will dig out the duct tape...

[Volvo Canadian]

There is indeed dumdum putty (or is supposed to be). One place is where the metal tab breaks into the inside of the door, another where the hinge goes in. Of-course that only tells you where, not how - sorry.

Another diagnostic technique might be to have a passenger with a lit candle at hand on the motorway, then you can locate the area of transgression.

Another diagnostic is to pull hard on the vent window when you are driving to see if the whistle decreases. If it does, you can have at the metal tab with a long pair of channel-lock pliers or some such thing. Pull it/bend it farther into the car. Seems reasonable that over the years this would need 'tuning-up', and it worked for me. You need to give a significant pull to affect much bending.

Good-luck, not an insoluble problem.

[tom-madbiker]

mine whistles on the motorway ifind if i crack the quaterlights open a bit the noise stops i dont mind as i usually have the window open anyway even in winter

[swedishandgerman]

Originally Posted by Volvo Canadian

Another diagnostic is to pull hard on the vent window when you are driving to see if the whistle decreases. If it does, you can have at the metal tab with a long pair of channel-lock pliers or some such thing. Pull it/bend it farther into the car. Seems reasonable that over the years this would need 'tuning-up', and it worked for me. You need to give a significant pull to affect much bending.

This worked well on mine. I found if I pulled the quarterlight tight, the whistling stopped. So I bent the tab so that the window closed more tightly

[tsetse1986]

Opening the quarterlight quietens it down but does not stop it. Since the horizontal part of the seal against the door is not in brilliant condition, I have ordered up a new one from Simon, so will try that plus plenty of dumdum on reassembly (which I didn't use when I put it together).

Thanks for your help so far guys, I'll keep you posted.

Tim

[tsetse1986]

The saga continues...

I eventually got around to fitting the new NS quarterlight rubber with a new triangular rubber block that fits in front. I could not find anywhere to usefully put dumdum sealant as the top surface of the door is mostly hollow (see pic). You can see the bit of Tiger Seal I used to seal the gap between the stainless window frame and door. This was left in place.

The second pic shows the quarterlight assy being lowered into place. When seated, the rubber seal pressed tight against all its mating surfaces and looked to be correctly seated. However, the 2 mounting tabs were around 2-3mm clear of the surface of the door. This meant the stainless window frame fitted slightly deeper into the window channel in the top of the door than it had previously. The internal metal finishing trim was trial fitted and the quarterlight rubber seated on this nicely too. I therefore shimmed the mounting tabs in this position with washers (pic 3) before reassembling the door. No dumdum was used on the rationale that some could be squirted under the rubber afterwards if needed.

I took it for a test drive with low expectations and was delighted when at an indicated 65 there was no whistle at all! I'm not sure exactly why its so much better but I suppose the new quarterlight rubber seals much more positively than the original which had gone hard with age.

Job done! Thanks to all for your help.

Tim

[Volvo Canadian]

A little dum dum never hurts, but could only vaguely imagine how it would help on the windows.

[tsetse1986]

Originally Posted by Volvo Canadian

A little dum dum never hurts, but could only vaguely imagine how it would help on the windows.

Looks like the only useful place for it would be under the external rubber lips of the quarterlight but since the whistle went with the new rubber, it looks like it wasn't necessary (at least in my car).