Clean, Purpose-Built 3rd Gen SR5

Ohh good call! Doing it in the cold (the first time) was a huge pain

 

You both are lucky.... I can get 210 miles out of a tank if I slip into neutral and coast into the gas station after it runs completely out.... only done that once though.

 

I have roof rack, stock tire size but factory tires are gone, I use different brand in same size. I have not bought the A/T tires yet.

I usually get around 15 to 22 MPG these days depending on the condition, traffic, etc.

I have air dam in the garage, I am sure it will improve the MPG which I remember I took it off before I went off road, and I noticed MPG dropped a bit on hwy before heading to the park. I thought about putting it back on but I decided to keep it off since I go off road.

 

In case you didn't know, the truck has 20 miles of gas left once you reached the "Please refuel" message.

 

Yeah, mine doesn't give a message. I have a second gen. So no fancy stuff like that. Gas light comes on with 5 gallons left, roughly, and that is all the warning I get.

 

Oh... I didn't realize... I just remember I was at your thread about a month ago which I saw your 2nd gen photos... I remember now. My bad. I should have check your info before leaving any comment.

 

Freakin nailed it!

 

Please continue

 

Well I took the back wall of the Goose Gear off for the 43rd time and reinstalled the OEM carpet insulation thingy. We’ll see if this helps at all…




I can’t imagine it will make much difference but it’s the only remaining variable from before my sounddeadening project so I maybe it will help.

 

Maybe it’s a lot denser than it looks?

 

That’s kinda what I’m thinking. It must do something pretty significant because removing that and then adding 2 layers of sound deadening still resulted in a louder cab than before. So it must somehow make a pretty big difference. I’m not going to be able to test drive it until tomorrow but I’ll keep you posted.

 

if not successful, then ask your wife to plug her fingers in your ears while you drive.

 

The vents are the issue. Even though they are supposed to close on their own, as soon as you have your blower fan on that air has to escape somewhere in order to not cause pressure issues, and thats where it ultimately goes so those vents stay partially open. Thats where your noise is coming from. Those stick on sound mats are more for stopping resonating noise through panels by limiting vibrations, but they wont do anything for sound coming through vents.

I'm no audio engineer, but I have done enough work with audio and sound proofing rooms to have a good enough understanding on how to lessen sound levels. Theres really only three ways to lessen noise, be a long ways away from it, create a thick insulating barrier to slow it down, or absorb it into something with good sound insulation properties by making it bounce against it over and over and over (this is how a sound proof room works. The panels you see on the walls are made of dense foam with multiple angles that bounce the sound waves back and forth and essentially trap them causing them to get absorbed into the foam). That OEM mat is more for temp insulation than sound deadening. It IS causing the sound waves to bounce multiple times against the mat and the back wall, and it has some sound insulating properties so each time it bounces it's absorbed a little more but it's minimal. But it's not thick enough to stop it and theres still plenty of area for the sound waves to get through. 90% of your noise was absorbed by the seats because they are thick foam AND create a decent seal around the edges. Sound waves had no where to escape so they have do go through the foam. The Goose Gear has next to zero sound insulating properties (and is open around the edges IIRC). Since theres not a lot of room you need something dense between it and the wall, and it needs to cover the entire space so theres no clear unobstructed pathways for sound waves to escape into the cab.

As I stated previously I used a memory foam mattress topper that I had lying around from other projects. It has vents holes through it so I figured it would be good to still allow some airflow from the cab to the vents. Something like this below would probably work good.

$30 Mattress Topper Twin, 2" Gel Memory Foam Mattress Topper, CertiPUR-US Certified

https://www.amazon.com/IULULU-Memor...4253&sprefix=matress+top,aps,323&sr=8-16&th=1

 

Thanks for all the info!! I appreciate it.

Yeah it’s painfully obvious that all the sound is is coming through the vents.

It seems like a lot of people think that I’m comparing the “before” and “after” with the “before” being when I had seats. That is not the case because I haven’t had seats back there for quite a while.

I had become very accustomed to the noise in the cab with the seat delete. It’s probably been a year since I had seats in the back of the truck, and I’ve driven at least 20K miles with no seats back there.

Then, when I removed that OEM foam padding flap and added the sound deadening material last week, the cab was louder. So I’m basically saying that the only difference between before and after is the removal of that big foam flap and I was shocked at how much it must have been dampening the sound coming from the vents.

This is a project I wish I had never taken on lol

 

It is possible that by adding the sound mat you amplified the nose from the vents. If the road noise through the wall was helping to cancel out or drown out the noise from the vents, that could be why you notice it more now. It's a change from your "normal".

 

Ugh yeah, I think you’re dead on with that one.

I mentioned to my wife the other day that I think I’m noticing the wind noise from the vents more now because there isn’t as much drone in the cab. Before it was just general loudness (if that makes sense) and now it sounds like that rear slider window is just cracked all the time.

 

Okay I was finally able to go for a drive with the OEM carpety insulation thing re-installed. It is definitely quieter and I believe it’s quieter than before all the sound deadening was installed. Success! I think lol

I’d say there’s probably 25% less noise coming from the rear of the cab than there was before I started the project.