Removing your headliner and insulating/sound deadening

Nice! Ive been chatting with @GHOST SHIP about installation and different types of mats. How do u like the product so far?

 

Thanks for the insight. If you do get around to it, and if you have time, a youtube tutorial would be cool.

If I had the materials already, I was going to ask if I could either help you or just watch how is it done. Im a bit of a cautious person when working on my truck and I tend to over think things.

 

I don't youtube (or any social media for that matter), but I'll try and get complete pictures when I do it again. This is actually going to be the 4th or 5th time I remove my own headliner so I'm getting pretty fast at it. Access cabs are so much easier because there isn't a B-pillar to contort around- that makes it about 6 times I've done this in total. It really isn't that hard. When I was new to wrenching, I was way more weary about working on engine or suspension components because I always thought about vehicle safety. For something like this where there's no moving parts, it's all interior panels and a few bolts. It's not so scary, you just have to figure our where all the hidden fasteners are and how they attach. No torque values or stretched or stripped bolts to deal with. It's just plastic, man. Worst thing that can happen is you break or lose a fastener. Vehicle is still driveable.

 

I have to say the Tacoma has the cheapest headliner I've ever seen, no padding at all, it's just like fabric glued to cardboard. Both of my Tundras have padding behind the fabric.

 

I've added this to the top of my project list. Interested to see if a group buy on materials happens!

 

No idea as it is all still sitting in boxes!

 

True.

 

Ok one last thing, what would you have done differently? Im trying to get an idea on what products to use and how much of it. Like I said before, I want to block as much heat as possible. Noise doesn't really bother me, but if the product deadens the sound, thats a bonus.

Also, when u do the headliner, could u take pics of how ur doing it? I seem to follow directions better when there are more detailed pics involved.

 

Not having a padded headliner has it's advantage. Have you ever seen old cars with sagging headliners? It's usually the padding that disintegrates and causes the sagging.

 

Ok.. made things happened today.


Ok.. a brief walkthrough in case anyone else is making this attempt. This was actually not bad at all:

Disconnect your battery since you are messing around the column airbags and then have at it!

1) Take the screws out for your visors, once the visor drops, disconnect the cable





2) The little clips that hold the end of your visor are easy. They just require a 1/4 turn counter clockwise and then they pop out.




3) Pull both your arm off as well. Its just three 10mm bolts. Two on the right in the grab handle, and one on the left hiding behind the "SRS - Airbag" emblem. Once the bolts are out, these will slide right off. You are not doing anything else with this area, they just had the corners of the headliner trapped.






4) Check on your left arm for a small piece of headliner taped to the wires for some strange reason. I caught this before I started yanking on things but I could see it causing an issue otherwise.




5) Drop your upper console. You can just fingernail the edges of this and pull it out. Once out, you have one cable in the back corner to unplug.




6) On to the back. Your hangers in the back don't have screws. Pop the cover off and then you can take the metal clip out by squeezing it towards the middle. As a note, when reinstalling, you need to put the metal clip back in, and the cover on to secure it, before reinstalling into the headliner.






7) The exact same steps as above apply to both grab handles.





8) There are wires hanging all over the place that are hotglued to the headliner. You will need to work these out before fully dropping the headiner, otherwise you will be ripping wires out. I pulled these up, and ended up ziptying them out of the way rather than regluing.





9) You can now drop the headliner. My recommendation now that I have done this project.. do it the same time you do the floor. With the seats in the way, the headliner doesn't come out of the truck. All you can do is drop it and work around it, which made things much more difficult.




10) I started applying the Noico mat anywhere I can find metal. This stuff works great and was very easy to apply. On tricky areas, I would only peel one section, getting it into place, and then work its way up.





11) I layered this stuff a bit, and I ended up going back and forth reattaching the battery to make sure that my sunroof would clear. Never had an issue, even with the mat and pad it never touches.




12) I hit every opening I could find, down the sides, across the front, and behind where the upper console goes




13) The pad goes up in the same way, and I reinforced it with some dynamat tape (Noico doesn't sell tape)




14) You will want to use one of the rollers. I bought one with a metal roller and it certainly paid for itself today. Made smashing into all the corners much much easier.


15) Reinstalling goes the same way. Your clips for grab handles, hooks, and visors will take a bit of extra pressure to snap back into place, but they didn't fight me too hard. Everything went good for me, and I am looking forward to having some more time so that I can rip out the seats and do the floor next!

 

Great write up. I did mine a while back and used this thread for the roof. When you do the floor you may want to consider using MLV vinyl instead of mat and pad and install it between the carpet and pad from the factory. It provides a much better sound barrier and made the greatest difference. I live in Florida so I used 2 layers of Frost King foam on top of the Dynamat layer in the roof for heat as well as sound rejection. I just took an almost 4000 mile trip and decided that sound deadening was my favorite mod.
edit:
The following gives a link to the 3rd gen shop manual which is 11292 pages long so you should be able to find whatever you want in those pages. Thanks go to @splitbolt for the link. All details for removing the headliner can be found there.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/looking-for-repair-manual.498823/

 

Thanks for the advice! Since I got my deal on the butyl mat and dampening pad I will probably stick with those. I ended up with just over 100 sqf of each product for $150 bucks, so I can't go back now!

 

awesome thread. Did the doors a while back and lived it! Need to do the floors and roof now

 

I've done the exact opposite.

 

What's the hold up?! it's soooo easy. Ive been afraid to pull the liner and carpets, they are too intimidating. The doors are peanuts.

 

Another great write up @GHOST SHIP
I've done my doors, back wall, more so for music factor, just need to drop the headliner
and get her done...
Not to worried about the floor

 

I got a bad case of the lazy.

Plus other random projects seem to come up and take over my weekends. Most recently a complete rewire of my aux panel and switches and building roof rack. Now I have oil change, tire rotation and greasing bushings (chasing a squeak) this weekend.

 

Thanks Rebecca!
Honestly I don't personally feel like the floor will make a HUGE difference. Noticeable, yes, but not worth it for my needs. The carpet already has the factory sound deadener (multi-colored wool-looking crap), whereas the doors, roof and back wall have nothing. I'll get around to doing the doors before winter, but I'm in no rush.

 

The floor not doing it...
I'll get around to the roof soon,but I need to do an oil change, front diff, transfer case, but I also NEED to get a couple more trail runs in before the snow hits. Priorities

 

Atta girl. Meanwhile I'm in poseur-town and haven't been wheeling in a long time, but all my maintenance is done.