Today I decided to get going on the finishing of the cab. Of course, some it is done, such as the headliner is covered with new material. Next is adding sound dampening so that I am not hearing exhaust and road noise right in my left ear while driving. Not only did that make me wonder if my door and/or a window was open, it was loud enough that hearing my music thumb drive was not doing it for me.
Here's a before and after photo, and as before, click to see a larger version.
Before:
And after:
In the before photo, you can see the aluminum wall that goes up to the height of the bed sides. Above that is the rear of the cab which comes in one piece that you then cut out for the window and then attach to the back of the roof of the car which was cut earlier. Well, lots earlier since it was one of the first operations you do.
Both of these surfaces are one layer, and that means noise hitting them is transmitted to the interior. Adding the sound dampening material helps a lot in making the interior much more comfortable noise wise while driving. That's the working theory, anyway.
The material I used is in a box labeled as 36 sq.ft., and 90mil thick. It consists of a thin aluminum layer, maybe a little thinner than a beverage can, but not much, and is probably 1100 aluminum (meaning unalloyed with other metals so pure aluminum) and I believe that because of how soft and stretchy and pliable it is. Not that I'm complaining. Those qualities are essential for installation into corners, for example, or being able to easily conform to the shape of the surface onto which it is being installed. The rest of the material is a tar-like substance which is only medium sticky, but plenty sticky enough for this purpose. I am sure it is filled with something (filled as in added to the "tar") to help make it cheaper, and not so sticky as to make it too sticky to handle easily during installation. That is, you can get it stuck to your fingers, but you'd have to work at that.
Also, it would be harder to install if it was cold (e.g. during the winter, unless you have a heat gun handy). Anyway, I just looked at the surface I needed to cover and tried to used the largest sheet possible to cover the area and keep from having to cut and fit small pieces. That worked well on the lower part (the aluminum sheet making up the bed side) but I did have to work on it around the sides and window. The B pillar brace is done nicely with 3 lightening holes and look cool, but I covered them up because I figured they would just make ports for sound coming in from the side. Put another way, the B pillar brace goes on the edge of what was the rear door opening before. The new bed side is on the outside of that and ends up making a chamber that is empty. I decided to cover up the openings. Another possible solution is to spray some urethane foam from your friendly local home improvement store to fill the space and deny a sounding area to sound. At this point I will need a short test drive to see how well just a cover has worked and thus whether I need to go buy a can of foam.
The damping material I used seems to cover well, and a closed fist bumping on the aluminum wall seems to dampen the bump. I hope it works well, and I will report back when I've had a chance for a short test, and then later with a better test (including interstate driving since I can't do that right now because I can only afford to insure one car).
The material I used is branded Noiko. This is a report on how well it seems to work so far, and I can't say it works better than other brands because I haven't tried other brands. I can say that you only need 35-36 sq.ft. for a Jetta turned trucklet. Other cars are about the same, or maybe a little more than I used for larger cars, but I have quite a bit left over from the one box, so I think any of the Smythe-ute kits would be covered by this one box. Now, if you go to town and start lining the doors and parts of the floor, or other areas, then I couldn't say. I just guessed as to how much I'd need, bought 2 boxes, so now I have plenty for my next build.
So, major tasks left are finishing up the interior, which is mainly covering the sound damper foil with the same material I used for the doors and headliner, installing the headliner, reinstalling the lights and interior trim stuff, and painting the front bumper cover and tailgate. I'll have to see if I can find my Jettachero logos and fix up then glue one of them onto the tailgate. Fix up means I need to use a fine file or files and sandpaper to remove the plasma cutting scrim (burrs on the edges) and smooth the cut lines. Maybe I'll polish it too. We'll see. This logo part may take a while (Ha! as if the build up to now has gone quickly!?!?).
Cheers,
PH