Why Deaden? Who says you need serious beats to benefit from it?

Hello everyone! Dan here from the MoCo Eats blog! I'm here to ask you if you're tired of being forced to crank your radio up every time you go past 45 mph just to hear what song is playing? Does your car sound like a thin metal can when you slam the door? There is a simple solution to that, it doesn't cost that much at all, and when you're done, your car will have that luxurious feel that much more expensive cars do.

There are many places in your car or truck that have nothing but a very thin layer of sheet metal separating you from the road. The trick to making your ride quieter is to drop the "resonance frequency" of these thin pieces of metal by making them thicker; and the more road noise and metal vibration you can stop, the better everything in your car will sound.

There are many many places to buy sound deadener for your car, and there are literally dozens of different types, grades, thicknesses and even colors. There is roll on, stick on, and glue on, and even spray on. So where do you start?

My journey started with a place that sells some of the best sound deadener that I know of. It's the thickest, and not the most expensive. www.edesignaudio.com . Not only do they have the kind you paint on with a brush, but they also have three different kinds of self-adhesive materials. Their prices are significantly lower than Dynamat and most deadener you can buy in retail stores, but I kept digging and found some stuff that was even cheaper. Do a google search for R-blox, or Fat Mat, and Brown Bread.. I bought 100 square feet of R-blox for $89.00 plus shipping. Here is the key: you want the most mil for the buck! While the stuff I bought (r-blox) is a lot cheaper than e-dead, it is also quite a bit thinner. For example the eDead UE is 120 mils, and the R-blox is 50 mils. That means I would have to put three layers down to exceed the thickness of the eDead UE. Fortunately what I bought came out to less than $1 per sq-ft and the eDead is $3.50/sq-ft. So to me it seemed worth having to do a couple layers.

The kind that comes in a can is also quite important to mention because it is the only kind that can go ANYWHERE! You typically won't want to use the sticky roll material on anything that takes extreme heat and is upside down. For example you wouldn't want to use it on the inside of your roof. However, if you were to buy the liquid, you could paint it on the roof and never have to worry about it falling down in the heat. For the sake of simplification, today I'm just going to be talking about the self-adhesive type of sound deadener since that's what I bought. Obviously the technique is going to be different for the kind that is painted on.

The first step is to remove as much covering as you can. The car’s covering… not yours… This involves door panels, carpet, and any plastic that you can remove. Be careful not to break anything, and if you do break anything, I’m sorry for your loss. Please don’t call me. ANYWAY, at this point your door should look something like the picture on the right. Perhaps yours doesn’t have a plastic covering, regardless, this plastic covering needs to come off because you need to release the invisable noise gremlins that live inside the door. Also because you will be reaching your hands inside the door to apply the sound deadening agent.

The reason we are starting with the door is because the entire panel on the outside of the car is most likely just a single thin sheet of metal. This is a good time to clean the door panel with Windex or some other grease-fighting spray to help the sound deadening adhere properly to the panels. Just for fun when you’re done cleaning the dust and dirt off, knock on the outside of your door panel just to hear what it sounds like "Before" you apply the sound deadening… You’ll thank me later when you hear the "After."

Now, cut pieces that are small enough to fit through the holes in the door panel, so you can apply them from the inside. Once you cut them, peel one corner and press that to the
place you want it then peel the protective layer until the whole piece is stuck. Repeat as necessary until the whole skin is covered inside. Just to warn you, I ended up with a lot of cuts and scrapes on my hands from this step, so be careful! Then be sure to use a roller (or, failing that a metal spoon works fine) to really press it down onto the panel.

Next step is to apply it to the outer part of the door (the part that will be covered by the door panel.) Cut a large, but manageable sized piece off of the roll. A good rule of thumb is the bigger the better for the pieces. The more seams you have, the less effective it becomes. My door has a metal arm rest in the middle that is riveted in place, so I opted to do two pieces instead of one and just work around that piece.

You have to be very careful to not stick the deadener over top of any moving parts! One solution is to cover them all with aluminum foil, but I have found this to cause rattles later. What I do is line the piece up over top of the moving parts, then cut the backing paper around them. This keeps the adhesive from touching any moving parts and you don’t have to worry. Here’s a picture to show how I did it.

Now back to the outside of the door . . . Here’s a shot of the first piece on.

Just like the inside of the door panels, start at one side and peel back a couple inches of the backing paper. Stick that to the door and then slowly with one hand pushing and the other hand pulling off the backing paper, work in one direction until the whole piece is applied. Now take a roller and work it into the contours of the door.

Here's a quick before picture showing how it looks after you work it into the contours using your roller (and/or spoon).

And this is after!

A good way to tell if you’re using enough is to knock on parts of the door. If it still rattles you can add another layer and press it down harder. This really makes a huge difference. I had to cut a couple holes in the deadener to let wires through, but when I got the wire through, I put a small square of deadener over the opening so the door panel remained air tight.

Now the only step left is to re-attach your door panel and go for a ride!

This mod makes such a huge difference on how my car sounds on the road. It dramatically reduced the road noise and tire noise. My stereo sounds better, and I don’t even have to turn it up when I hit 70mph! In fact, I even have a fun story from my experience. On my way to work the morning after I finished this project, I called my wife and asked her how it sounded and it went something like this…

Me: “Hi honey! How do I sound?”
Her: “You sound great, are you in your car?”
Me: “I am… so you don’t hear any road noise or anything?”
Her: “Nope, it’s silent.”
Me: “Cool! I’m doing 80!”
Her: “WHAT?!”

The doors make the most difference, but you can do this modification anywhere there is thin metal or insufficient deadening material on the car. Some places to look are transmission tunnels and the firewall in the engine bay.

Please be sure to share your experiences! We'd love to hear from you.