New floor and sound padding (pics)

[farside847]

Over the weekend I replaced all the floor stuff and put down sound padding. The product I used
was the Brown Bread that has been used by so many others on this board. While I was at it I
took some pics for the archives

I started out on the doors. I took the metal panels off and put the sound material inside the
door and attached it to the back wall. It was a pretty hot day so once you took the paper off
the back it was SUPER sticky. I tried to peal back only a few inches of the strip and stick
inside the door and in place, then peal the rest off and push it into place. I ended up using 4
small-ish strips inside the door, larger strips were just too hard to get in the small access hole.


I also put a layer on the backs of the door panels. The Brown Bread people forgot to include the
neato roller, but I found that an old tape dispenser worked quite well


While I was at it, I replaced the top trim pieces with chrome ones from Brothers. (BTW - I
placed the order with them, then they emailed me it was on backorder, so I called to cancel and
they said "Oh, we have stock, they will ship today" - whatever...) They look good anyway. This
shows the new unit in place and the old one below it.


Then it was on to the floor. I pulled the seat out and the old rubber mat. EEEEWWWW. Lots of
fun stuff under there.


It took a little while to clean out all the junk. But I was amaized at how good of shape the floor
was in. The brown is not rust, just primer. I found one or two small surface rust areas that I
cleaned up and shot a little rust paint to seal them up.


Ah, the super rare "billy-club" option. My grampa had all the extras in his truck!


Then I started to put down the brown bread. This was kinda a pain and took me almost 2 hours.
Its a lot of cutting, stretching, cursing, bending, and pushing to get this stuff over and under all the
bumps. Gave myself a pretty nastly papercut too. O well. After that I put down the stock jute
pad. That part was easy, just a little 3M spray adhesive and it goes right down.






I put the new rubber mat out in the sun for a few minutes to get good and flexy, then went to get
it and almost burnt my damn fingers off trying to pick it up. Damn that stuff gets hot! Put it down in
place and almost had kittens - IT DIDNT FIT! I didnt get it, I pulled this way, that way, nothing. It
would buckle up in the center. Eventually I figured out that it would not slide up under the floor
heater vent all the way, so I had to cut out a small section to get it to lay down.


After that it layed down nice and flat like it was supposed to. I relaxed and had a beer.


I got a little help to put the seat back in place and bolted it down. All done! It looks much nicer and
has that "new car smell". After driving it around I can hear the difference with the brown bread. Not
as big a drop as I hoped, but a definate improvement. The road noise is almost completely
gone, but the engine noise is still there. But, I can now hear my radio on the freeway, so thats
something.