Removing your headliner and insulating/sound deadening

Sorry to hear about your gramps Jon147. Thoughts and prayers.

 

Much appreciated, thanks.

 

Sorry to hear that man. Family comes first, all this other stuff is secondary...

 

Thanks man

 

What a funeral; So much tension in the family, I'm glad it's over-Back to reality now.
If you're still interested in this little experiment, I was thinking of continuing with a different product either this Saturday or next Friday. Just an FYI.

 

Sorry for your loss man. Yes, I'm still interested, but take your time.

 

Appreciate it. Yeah, I'll post up my findings.

 

Update:

I finally got around to finishing this project this weekend which was perfect as it's been unseasonably warm for February in SoCal. We were in the high 80s this weekend and expect to see low 90s this upcoming week.

The first step was to drop the headliner. There is a youtube video that briefly goes over how to drop it on 2ng gens. I feel that the video missed a few things that I can shed some light on hopefully. Unfortunately for viewers at home, I tend to get caught up with my projects and forgot to take pictures during some critical steps. I'll try to describe them here as best I can.

There are several things holding up the headliner and they're easy enough to figure out if you take your time. Most have exposed or hidden fasteners with the majority being 10mm bolts or phillips screws. The ones that don't are the visor clips and coat hangers on the rear of the headliner in double cabs (not sure if AC or RC have these). They come out by turning them 1/4 turn counter clockwise and just pulling them out. They have small retaining clips that keep them up there, but the hidden sheet metal is keyed so they come out easily.



Next is the sunglass holder. Easy enough. There is one phillips screw in the rear holder. Remove that and pry with your fingers at the front of the plastic and it should pop right out. There are retaining "fingers" on the rear of the plastic trim that keep the sunglass holder in place, but only clips at the front. Don't forget the wiring harness for you map lights. 2 clips there.


A-pillar on both sides has 2 10mm bolts behind the small covers. Pop them out and unbolt the two and you should be good.


These little clips along the side of the headliner that are labeled "air bag" do not contain and air bag. They hide two more 10mm bolts (one per side). I used a small pick tool to pry the cover open to access the bolts.


Here's where I got ahead of myself and didn't take pictures. The side panels between the doors of a double cab and the corner panels in the rear of the cab (where the seatbelts are attached). These things are kind of the hardest part of this whole process. They are held on by plastic clips and two hidden 10mm bolts at the bottom of each of the 4 panels. To get to the bolts, you have to remove the lower section of each trim panel. To remove that trim panel, you have to pull away the door weatherstripping. To pull the weather stripping, you have to remove the sill plates all around. Sound like a PITA, doesn't it? Don't answer that, it was rhetorical. It's a PITA only because its a multi-step process. If you take each one at a time, and go slow, you should be fine. Once all that stuff is done, the headliner should basically just drop out of place. You should be looking at this: A whole bunch of notching but bare sheet metal.

There are some wires attached to the headliner for your map lights, dome lights, etc.. Be very careful with these as they are super thin and glued or taped in place. The glue is there to keep the wires from vibrating and rattling inside your headliner. (Ask me how I know. Never mind, don't ask- also rhetorical.)

While I was at it, I also removed the rear cubbies so I could follow the process on the rear of the cab. No real trick here. A few 10mm bolts and they pull right out.


Now the good stuff. Here's what UPS dropped off:

The foil backed sound deadener:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PCLPXXQ?refRID=96SZR7392TRPKZY8QTJ3&ref_=pd_bia_nav_t_3
And a roll of foam heat insulation:

NOICO Liner 157 Mil 37.5 Sqft Car Heat Insulation Pad, Foam Self-Adhesive Sound Deadening and Automotive Dampening Mat for Cars (1/6'' Sound Deadener)

http://www.amazon.com/Noico-Automot...xgy_263_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=068B8ZE8F1Z422ETHHTZ
While you're at it, get an application roller.

$12 uxcell Car Sound Deadener Application Rolling Wheel Roller 5cm x 3.5cm

http://www.amazon.com/uxcell®-Deade...263_img_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0XMPB67HVDS5E5RX1RK8
For an extra $4.50, it pays for itself by saving your hands from getting beat up when pressing this stuff into place. You want a tight bond and there really isn't a substitute for the roller. A little known fact is that you can use the rounded tip of the handle to press the deadener into tight curves in the sheet metal. Anything with more of an edge would tear into the product and make your application look like garbage.


And I got excited and did the whole roof (both layers) before I pulled out my camera for pictures again. Here you can see the black foil backed sound deadener and the lighter grey layer is the heat insulation. BTW for people looking to do the TPMS delete mod. I believe the little black box there on the rear of the headliner is the TPMS module. Disconnect that and no more TPMS light forever! I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere on here. If it doesn't work, don't blame me- you should've done your research instead of listening to strangers on the internet.


Not sure if you can see it here, but I also went as far as sound deadening and heat insulating the metal bracket that holds my sunglass holder. For anyone that has put on their sunglasses after your truck has been parked in the sun all day and burned the bridge of your nose- here's your chance to fix this issue.


Once you get as much coverage as you can go and put your truck back together. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Call your friends and amaze them with something that they will never see and will never understand why you're so excited about it.
I'd say total I spent about 4-5 hours (I wasn't really keeping track) doing this by myself. A second set of hands would have made this go faster and possibly ever removing the seats out of the truck. I spent a lot of time running around my truck looking for that one last clip or bolt that I missed. Hope this helps you guys that are planning to do this. So far, with one day of driving, you can definitely tell the difference with the sound deadener. This project is well worth the effort involved. As far as heat reduction, I want to say I felt a difference today, but that's more of a "butt-dyno" approach. I will be doing some more scientific testing in the near future with another members truck in similar configuration. I'll get temp readings and everything once we both have time to park our trucks out in the sun.

 

Cool,thanks for the pictures bud, I have my Garmin on a rear view mirror mount o got from ram mounts, got it through a place called gps city, on a separate note, how did you route your power cable for your gps

 

@Crom
@Unchained 5150
@b.prall
@dcsbtaco
@dzzyneon
@BotoSlap808
@TinyTech626
@Jystr

 

You're the first person to ask about this. Haha! I actually wired in a separate 12v cigarette lighter underneath the dash and that in turn is wired to a switch in my Iggy panel. I flip the switch on the panel and the GPS unit turns on. The wires are routed under the headliner and down the a-pillar to the 12v source. I like that it's clean and gets the wires out of the way so they aren't dangling all over the dash. My dash cams are wired the same way front and rear- except they are wired to a keyed 12v source. That way they turn on when the car comes on and I don't have to remind myself to turn them on all the time. The front cam is mounted to the rearview mirror stem and the rear mount can be seen attached to the window in the picture with the TPMS box.

On a separate note, I may move the GPS unit to the visor so I can flip it down when I need it and flip it up when I don't. Bam! Stealth GPS! This would clean up my view out the front windshield also.

 

Thanks for the info bud, been thinking of a way I could route my cable so it's not dangling down to the power port

 

No problem, Brian! Let me know if you have questions. I'll update here as I go through and live with the mod for a bit. I may add another layer of insulation to the roof just for the heat reduction (my main goal). If I was only concerned with sound deadening, I'd stop here because I'm extremely happy with the results in that department. Ill probably add some form of mat insulation like the Thermo-tec or Frost king previously discussed. I did notice that the Noico roll was similar in material and thickness as the Frost King stuff minus the foil backing. I'll keep looking for options, but these two are my frontrunners.

Another thing to keep in mind is that anything you add that has an odor will linger for a bit. The Noico stuff did not add any odors to my interior as I've heard with other products except during install.

 

Yea, I've heard that to, just wondering where I can hook up a power port to a switched ignition source on the left of the steering wheel

 

Easiest place to add on to the existing acc fuse. The way I figure, you're probably not going to be running stuff off all your 12v sources at the same time, so another port wouldn't be an issue. I used an add-a-fuse on the acc fuse for my dash cams, but they only pull about 5-7 amps total.

 

I'm thinking of useing an add a fuse in the fuse panel on the left of the dash, just going to take me a bit to find a switched ignition fuse

 

Got your back, Brian. This is the one I used. Keyed acc fuse. Only on when the key is turned to acc/on.

 

Thanks bud

 

Awesome post! I'll follow your instructions soon. And lol at your rhetorical questions.

 

I haven't read this whole thread, only the beginning references, but figured I'd add something to the "theoretical" discussion here since I'm someone who had to survive getting into a car parked with no shade in a 110-115F heat every day at the end of work for a few years. And that parking lot was full of a whole bunch of engineers many of whom had been parking there for 30 years or more.

All the white car vs. black car web experiments miss the absolutely most critical factor determining interior temperature. Your car is a greenhouse. There is not much measured temperature difference between a black car or a white car since the primary heating mechanism for a car is having 1 kW/m^2 pour in through the windows at visible wavelengths, hit the interior of the car and be absorbed by the interior features, then be re-radiated by those hot interior features at infrared wavelengths that can not get back out through the glass.

Light hitting your exterior paint is much less of a problem. Yes, black paint gets hotter and that will conduct and re-radiate more heat into the vehicle than white paint. But remember, that black paint is also radiating much of its heat efficiently back to the outside. Even though the black paint is absorbing much of the 1 kW/m^2 it is also re-radiating a healthy bit right back at infrared wavelengths - and it is radiating more than the white paint because of its elevated temperature. Compare this to windows which effectively absorb all of the suns energy without radiating hardly any back to the exterior. So until you do something about the glass the vehicle paint color doesn't make a huge difference.

If you want to reduce the temperature in the vehicle you need to get all that light coming in the windows back out the window still at visible wavelengths. That means a reflective sunshade - not some moronic black Raiders or other branded sunscreen - but an actually shiny metallic sun shade. Orient your vehicle so that this sunshade is actually doing something (i.e. point your windshield at the sun). Consider getting one or two side shades as well. Again, get actual shiny metallic reflectors or worst case bright white. I'm amazed how many fold up sunshades are dark green or some other stupidly ineffectual color.

Now once you do this, now you will notice more of a difference in temperature between a white car and a black car both of which have proper sunshades installed. Both vehicles will of course be significantly cooler, in fact a good reflective bubble sunshade with the car properly oriented will drop the peak interior temperature by about 20F compared to no sunshade. Similarly the effectiveness of any sort of added body insulation will also be more notable once you have proper sun-shading installed.

As a side note window tint is also reasonably effective since it makes the glass itself absorb the heat where it can be re-radiated as opposed to letting it enter the car interior before being converted to infrared wavelengths.

TL;DR - Get a reflective bubble sunshade as a first step in keeping a truck cool. Only then will other insulation start to be meaningfully effective.