Sound Proofing 2

Did sound proofing at Elegance Auto (Kelana Jaya) this afternoon. A friend and I bought 8 large sheets of Accumat.

We paid the retail price (RM850) for the sheets, 4 for her City (front doors, dual layers) and 4 for me. I did front doors (single layer) and under the rear seats.

The sound proofing took about 3 hours, and Elegance Auto (Kelana Jaya), did a very good and responsible job. However, their staff keeps asking me to buy this, buy that.

Pics:

1. The driver door with panel removed. Its quite solid by itself, with no gaping "holes". I decided not to sound proof this area, as it has 2 rubber lids which can be sealed / opened (holes). Look at pic 2 and 3 for the close ups of the rubber lids.




2. The original speaker and 1st rubber lid (closed)




3. The 2nd Rubber lid (opened)




4. Rubber lids opened




5. Original speaker. It felt quite solid / heavy, compared to the original City speakers, which are terrible. Wifey didn't allow upgrade... so will have to stick to this one, for now.




6. The (solid) inner panel removed, revealing the outer panel, which has got a safety bar going across the door:




7. The accumat sheet:




8. The sheet was cut in two. Putting up the first piece:




9. After the doors were done, then the back seat.




10. Originally, there was some sound proofing done, but only a portion on the back seat.

Tire Sound Proofing

Had a discussion on sound proofing the rear tires. Some approaches:

1. Install a full plastic cover. Currently, only the cover only runs halfway through the rear tires. Have to look around chop shops for this, and may require modification. Will be hard to install, cos not much mounting area. Not much sound proofing performance, but reduce stones hitting the car sound.

2. Sound proof the interior. A long process, have to remove all seasts. Very very expensive. Adds weight to the car. But best performance in sound proofing.

3. Rust proofing. Dunno much, but SA mention, it will help to sound proof.

4. DIY sound proofing:

• Mix bitumen with turpentine, and apply a few layers above the tires
• Or get a can of spray - sound proofing

So, I was at Ace Hardware and bought PLASTI DIP!:




No time to spray-on, most probably will do it next weekend.

Stripping the booty...

Went to Brother Peter at DU to check out their sound proofing services. Here's what I found.

According to the box, its an Australian product of tar & bitumen mixture. The sheets are sticky black stuff on 1 side and aluminum foil at the other, with size 25cm x 50cm.

The X20 has almost NO sound proofing in the boot. There's a tiny strip of hardened rubber in the pic below (right above the tire):



Besides that, its hollow and rattling metal parts:




Sound proofing is a tedious job. The workmanship is very important. For my Kenari, it took a whole day (about 5 hours), to do up 2 doors and another day to do the boot.

This guy below, is sound proofing the C-pillars:



The last bits are the top of the boot, where Mr. Peter assured me that it won't fall off.



The whole process took about 4 hours.

After completing the sound proofing, the spare tire screw did not want to go in (due to the raised boot floor level). Their guys "modified" the screw to add length to it. Will get pics next time.