Sound Deadening-Dampening. How Much Of The Vehicle?

Working on a budget, but planning to deaden the truck. Whats considered the normal "must do"?

Front Doors?
All Doors?
All Doors and Rear?
et.

Just curious what the best bang for buck "make sure you deaden at least..." scenario is.

 

At minimum, do the doors and back wall. I recommend doing the entire cab. If you use RAAMmat and ensolite, it won't cost that much. ~$300 or less.

I did mine in stages, noticed biggest noise reduction from doors and floor, but if you have a system against the back wall, the back wall should definitly be done before the floor.

I'm doing my ceiling in the next few weeks, so I'm not sure the benefits on that yet.

 

great question! I have also been wondering what the reasonable ballpark costs are for having it done if its not DIY.

 

From what I understand, you'll have to pull everything out of the cab to do the deadening on the floor... Carpet, seats, center consol, etc. How difficult is that and any special tools one would need?

If I do anything, I'd do the floor first, then the doors, then the back wall... for me that is.

 

If you are going to do it, do it right, and do the extire cab. The cost may be high if you want a quality result, IMHO, it is well worth the investment. Check through the A/V section of the site. There are plenty of build ups in there to check out. I did the entire truck with no special tools. Some advice, if you are goin to do the ceiling, the right way with CCF and dampener, get any extra set of hands to help reinstall. Feel free to bump us guys that have done it for help.

 

If you are just upgrading your speakers, is this something that should still be done??? I have some Image Dynamic speakers I'm planning to put in asap, but I never really considered sound deadening. Should I???

 

I did all 4 doors and back wall. HUGE difference, it's like a vacuum, dead zone. I was cruising home the other night slowly, dead silent, like a luxury car.

 

I just purchased $178.00 worth of RAAMat BX (1 roll), 6 Yds Ensolite, 2 cans of spray adhesive. When I calculated out the use to cover the cabin of my '09 DC (any rounded surfaces do not need the BX product, just flat surfaces which could resonate, but if you have enough to cover those too, why not), I have enough to do everything except the roof. I never intended to do the roof either. One thing I think is really important is to do inside and out of each door with a speaker. If you don't have a speaker in a door you should at least do under the door panel. Some people believe in two coats of the BX products, I personnaly won't be doing that. All this stuff does is reduce vibrations from your speakers and other road noise.

So I guess what I'm saying is the cost of sound deadening your DC is not $300.00.

Something you should look into is your door seals. I get a lot of noise from wind which comes from my doors. I need to run a dollar bill through a closed door to see where I need to bend the window frame back into place or maybe I'll have to replace the seal itself (I hope not).

That's my two cents...

-Joe

 

Ive gone through many of peoples build threads in regards to sound deadening, but is there a how-to thread somewhere that I missed? I often read people talking about both sides of the door, but havent actually seen pictures of this done...or did and just didnt know it lol.

 

Backside of the outside sheet metal. You don't need to cover it completely. I put a large piece in the center, tap on the outside of the door,
working your way back towards handle, until you hear it ring (hollow sounding) put another strip and so on, same towards front of door.
I talked to Rick (I think) at Raamaudio; procedure he recommended.

Careful building up the inside sheet metal, I had some overlapping seems of the foam and had trouble fitting the door panel back on.
Take your time, go slow and WEAR GLOVES! Figured that out 1/2 way through, my hands were shredded...I had band-aids on every finger.

 

the engine noise travels through the fire wall, not the hood then glass.

I got my doors, back wall and floor done. 300 is on high side, 1 roll isn't enough to do a full job on entire cab.

You don't need any special tools besides a screw driver, rachet and alot of patiences. It took me ~20 hours to deaden the cab

 

Another tip. Trace your door panel outline onto the door before you remove it, with a grease pencil or chalk.
(I figured this out after I was done) That way you have a guide where to trim. I kinda guessed where to stop,
ended up with some sticking out of the the panel, trimmed it off but it left sticky crap on the door.
Had to scrub it with goo gone.

 

Pictures, lots of them and a job well done. When you look at the photos, the Left Rear Door has lots of open holes. You stick the dampening material in there against the outer skin. Yes, true it's not actually in these photos, thought it was, but there are photos on this site somewhere because I've seen them. Just ensure you press the material up solid to the inside so it bonds well. Use a roller to assist in pressing it into place.

Click here

 

Yea, I may need to order some more, maybe, but I can't see using more than a few more SQFT. But if I do it will be the BX for floor installation. It's cheaper while Rick still has it since it was basically a bad adhesion on the lot but works fine for the floors.

How much did you use of the BX product?

 

Definitely planning on doing this in the coming weeks. I plan to do the doors (all 4 ya think?) and behind the rear seat where my sub and amp rack is.

Not looking forward to the install...just the bennies. Wish I had a better local shop that I trusted would do this at a decent price.

 

Unfortunately you have to pay by the hour and doing an install does take time, especially if you want to deaden the metal. I think I will not mind my install once I get the 4 GA power wire run through the firewall and tied in place. I will be breaking mine up into at least two sections.
1. Install new speakers in the doors and deaden the door, and run the power wire through the firewall. I expect only 4-5 hours for this section if I plan it properly.
2. Remove the front and rear seats, install dampening products on the rear, firewall, and floor. Mount AMP under drivers seat, run all the wires, reinstall carpet and seats. This part could be two days long like a weekend.
3. Pray it works.

 

I've got an access cab, and did the whole interior with raammat products. I think I used a pack of BXT II, 1/2 a roll of BXT, and 1/2 roll of the floor only BXT. And a bunch of ensolite, can't remember how much. Some of it was the stuff you need to spray the adhesive on, some was the newer self-adhesive type. (Which is awesome BTW, just cut, peel, and stick.)

It helped a ton with the noise. Still can hear the windnoise from the mirrors at 70mph, and my Duratrac's are not the quietest tires. But unless I'm cruising at 70mph or so like I said, it'd deathly quiet.

One thing, the new peel and stick ensolite is great and easy to use. I used scraps to put that all over places that might not normally get done. On the back side of the kick panels, under all the door sill panels, the a pillars, etc etc. Since the CCF really helps tame the high frequency stuff like wind noise, I am really thinking that helped a ton in knocking some of that down.