Sound deadening opinions wanted.

[JamesR]

I removed the seats, carpet and factory sound deadening (among other interior components) from my '65 a year ago when I replaced front floor pans and addressed other rust related issues and refinished interior surfaces. I've had a makeshift seat set up so I could briefly test drive the car when needed (e.g., testing new suspension components.)

Driving around for the last year without an interior makes me appreciate how critical good sound deadening material is for a pleasant driving experience. The exhaust noise alone in my stripped out car is pretty distracting...and I have a mostly stock exhaust in good condition. Back when I bought the replacement carpet (not yet installed, of course) I also bought some sound deadening material, but my criteria back then was mostly low cost. I bought a product from Noico that was very lightweight and affordable - it's called Noico Red 150 mil. (BTW, it's also a heat barrier.) I'm guessing that it's at most one quarter the weight of the material I removed, and maybe less than that.

I've also read somewhere that to get the optimum benefit of this product, you should really put down some rubber sheeting first...which would make the price equivalent to dynamat type stuff. Has anyone used the Noico product I mentioned? How well did it work and how did you apply it? I'm now thinking that this may be a product more designed for sports cars or street racers where weight is a consideration.

What would you recommend for the best sound deadening? I seem some T-Bird specific kits, but I don't if that would be as good as dynamat or not...maybe they use dynamat. If the stuff I bought will work, I'll use it, but I'm sort of having doubts about it. If it won't work for interior deadening, I could use it in the trunk because there will be a trunk liner kit covering it up. Thanks for your opinions.

[jtschug]

Aftermarket sound deadener like Dynamat is basically just butyl rubber with a thick aluminum foil backer and a wax paper removable cover. Cut to size, Peel the wax paper and stick. Use a small roller to push it into the metal. For what it is, Dynamat is ridiculously expensive, there are plenty of alternatives out there that are basically the same thing. The only real difference is the thickness of the rubber. Thicker = more deadening = heavier

I did my whole car, including the trunk with two 50 Sq ft rolls of B-Quiet Extreme, and I doubled it up in a few spots for extra deadening.

https://www.b-quiet.com/

For new cars they use an expanding deadener shot from a spray gun that is applied before the body shell goes through the paint oven. It is a little lighter and a lot cheaper than the aftermarket stuff, but I don't know how you could do that at home without removing everything off the car and just putting the sheetmetal in an oven for an hour or whatever. Perhaps someone on here works on new cars and can tell us how they repair that stuff in the field.

[stubbie]

I used Dynamat on the floors and some other similar type of sound deadener that I got from my local Jaycar store on the inner fenders instead of the old original fibre type material. I've also got some aluminum backed foam for the firewall under dash. Haven't been out on the road as yet so not sure on it's effectiveness but hopefully good.The stuff jtschug mentioned looks good to.

[JamesR]

Thanks for the replies. Jtschug, is the B quiet stuff also a heat/temp barrier? I saw something that indicated it might be, but I couldn't be sure.

Also, are you happy with the quietness of your car? Thanks.

[jtschug]

The Noico Red 150mm you are looking at is a closed cell foam which will have better thermal insulating properties. The B-Quiet extreme has the aluminum foil that provides some thermal insulation, but not a lot. In close reading of the Noico website, they recommend combining Noico Red with Noico Black for sound deadening. Noico Black is really the equivalent product to Dynamat or B-Quiet. Eliminating the 'tinny' noise from sheetmetal really requires something that sticks to the metal, and the nice thing about butyl rubber is it is very sticky and it stays sticky over time.

From the factory, Ford included a 1" thick foil backed fiberglass insulation blanket over the transmission tunnel (under the console and rear seat), and the dash bulkhead (firewall) had a thick molded rubber mat and cotton insulation on it, those are available as reproduction, or you can make one yourself using carpet padding. The Osborn Body Assembly manual has good information about where the original sound deadeners and insulation layers were installed at the factory if you have not seen an unmolested car with the interior removed.

On my car, I used the B-quiet to replace the asphalt sound deadening insulation. My dash bulkhead insulation was in good shape, so I kept it in place, and I fabricated replacement 1" thick fiberglass mats under the console and rear seat, just like what was originally there.

My car is a convertible, so it isn't very quiet with the top up, but with the top down, I'm pretty happy with it. I'm sure a hard top would be a lot quieter. It got noticeably quieter when I installed the fiberglass hood insulation, which I did not expect.

[JamesR]

Thanks a bunch for the information. Very helpful. Since I already have a Noico component, I might just call them about their recommendations for the rubber underlay. I've seen that several manufacturers promote the use of a roller tool to press the stuff on. That seemed a little odd to me at first, but it makes sense once you mentioned the material has to maintain contact with the metal floor and stick to it solidly for proper sound reduction.