Sound deadening front doors

Hey guys, I have a quick question about sound deadening.

I have an 07 doublecab and just upgraded my stock HU to an alpine cda-117. I am planning to purchase a set of alpine type-s 6.5 components to install in the front doors.

I've read numerous posts about full sound deadening jobs by doing the inner/outer skin and blocking off the holes with plexiglass etc. My problem is that the outer skin from about half way down is peppered with undercoating. Obviously dynamat or products like it won't be able to stick there.

Is it worth my time/money to just do the area around where the speaker will be with dynamat? or should I just use strip caulk on the bracket I'll be making and call it a day.

 

You can put dynamat on the areas not covered by undercoating. You dont need to apply dynamat to the entire skin and doing so is actually just wasteful. Only about 25% of the area needs to be covered to control resonance. I would definitely do around the speaker area at a minimum. I suggest reading this page for more quality information. http://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi

 

Its worth a $50-100 investment to do it right. If you can use a scraper to get the undercoating off, do it. If not, get coverage above, and any you can in the are. As stated, 100% coverage is not needed.

Then either get some plexi, or one of my favorites, steel mesh (like is used for covering gutters - not the plastic junk, but the thick metal stuff), and cover the holes, and use screws and the CLD mat to seal them.

I prefer this method as it is easier to get into if needed for repairs. Not as good as a solid material (at least for bigger holes) but it helps a ton.

On the outer skin cover flat areas, holes (not the ones for the door panel...) any large flat areas can use a piece. Again, no need for 100% coverage, or around bends.

If you want to go further, do so. But some cheap foam over the door panel will keep vibrations at a minimum at this stage, if you dont go to a lead or MLV layer.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. That was a good read. Seeing as how you don't need to coat the whole door with CLD, I might just clean off some of the outer skin and slap a few tiles on there.

As for closing in the holes in the door, I worry about down the road when I might have to get in there for repairs. If this CLD is anything like ice/water sheild it won't be coming off without a fight.

I may try just putting a few pieces inside the door and then cover some flat areas as mentioned above, especially where the speaker sits. I'm sure that won't be the 100% ideal way but it should make a difference yet still leave the inside of the door panel accessible.

I'm just trying to achieve a happy medium here. Thoughts?

 

While "building an enclosure" out of your door would be better, the minimal investment of simply deadening the bigger panels and around the speaker will still make a noticeable difference, and can probably be done for $50-75, including a layer of CCF.

 

If you're happy with the results then go for it. It's so simple to remove the door panels that if you aren't satisfied with your first approach you can go back later and improve. I went full-monty from the beginning and did CLD tiles and sealed the large holes with plexi and used a MLV/CCF barrier and I am extremely pleased with the results but it also took a long time and like you said it will take longer to remove those things if I do need to service components inside the door.

 

After doing some more reading I'm considering closing the large holes with plexiglass, using the cld tiles and some foam as this would obviously get better results by making an "enclosure". I've got a couple questions for those who have done this.

1. Are self tapping screws necessary to hold the plexiglass in? Or will silicone and pieces of the cld tiles do the job?
2. If I ever need to remove the cld tile from the holes I cover, how much of a royal PITA is it on a scale from 1 to 10?