Tips for Dynamat Door Application

[Davecr-v]

Alright I am finally fed up with the door rattles and road noise in my V so I decided to order a Dynamat Door kit for my front two doors. I bought dynamat Extreme doorkit for about 50 bucks looking on youtube the instllation looks time consuming specifically opening the door panel and dealing with the wires. Can someone give me tips, advice, and expectations I looked at the crutchfield youtube video is there anything I should look out for also are the speakers mounted in the door panels or the doors themselves. I got someones garage and my dads going to help ohh well I guess its a step in auto repair especially for guy who cant install blinds in his house :o

[Badgerland]

Davecr-v, I'm glad that you decided to take action on the noises that were bothering you so much in one of your other posts! :) Hopefully you can document this procedure with some photo's and post just how difficult the whole process is. Sorry I can't provide you with any words of wisdom...except from Norm of "This Old House" fame....measure twice, cut once!

[rdorman]

It is a start. Realize that it will be time consuming and be patient. Most cars that get mat have the entire interior removed and everything covered. Doors, firewall, roof panels are all major offenders. Floor pan can be without plenty of padding. Pay close attention to mounting points for the door panel, handles, switches etc. Be sure the surface is very clean. Do not cover up drain holes. Look carefully for other items that might make noise such as a cable vibrating again metal and take steps to prevent it. Tighten everything. Be sure everything works correctly before you replace the door panel. There are some TSB here for some other noise issues http://www.crvownersclub.com/forums/t2453/

[rdorman]

If you want to keep going on your noise reduction, I highly recommend these products: http://www.secondskinaudio.com/store.php?category=70

The Beauty of this stuff is it can be used as an undercoating so no need to remove the interior. Of course, you can put it on the inside as well. It can be sprayed, rolled or brushed. Wheel wells, floor pans and firewalls are all items that could be done without removing a single part. If you do pull the interior, there are foam products that in place of the traditional jute padding that will not break down when wet and do a much better job at noise reduction. Removing and interior is not as difficult as it sounds. For instance in my Infiniti there are only two bolts and five screws holding the entire back seat in the car. Front seats, four bolts and two or three harness connectors. Remove a number of trim pieces and the carpet and headliners come out. Within a few hours, the interior can be stripped bare by only one person. Undercoating or bedliner type spray help but products designed just for the purpose are obviously superior. Of course, after the Spectrum, why not coat!

If you haven't noticed yet.... a truly effective noise reduction 'system' is expensive and labor intensive. It can add thousands of dollars to the manufacturing cost. Which is of course why you really only see good systems on high end vehicles. Most manufacturers will not even think about increasing the cost of manufacturering by 10%.

[headknocker]

Here's a little tip which worked very well on my '98 V around five years ago when I applied sounddamping mat to the doors. I'm not sure if the newer V's use the same adhesive to hold the plastic vapor in place so keep that in mind(I assume you'll be throwing away the vapor barrier and matting over the door's access holes).

The adhesive Honda uses is gooey/sticky and it's kind of difficult to fully remove. You have to remove it completely or the matting won't adhere properly in those locations.

Anyway, some people recommended using acetone and that's what I tried initially. It did work to some degree but it's smelly and I knew there had to be something else which did a better job without the powerful smell.

Then on a whim I tried good old WD40 and it cut through that stuff like a champ. I just sprayed it onto the adhesive and let it sit for a couple of seconds. Then I used a putty knife to remove the worst of it followed by a second and sometimes third application which I removed with a paper towel. I then made sure to remove all of the WD40 residue by spraying several applications of Windex or something similar.

[Davecr-v]

Yeah I figure I love everything about the car aside for the road noise and rattles so if I can fix that it would be great. I am going to pick up more WD 40 and denatured alcohol for cleaning the metal I am going to use the vapor barrier as a template to avoid filling up needed holes. I am also going to get zip ties and be mindful of anything that could cause a rattle or noise i.e. cables that contact bare metal. Being Dynamat extreme do I have to heat up the material with a heat gun as recommended in original Dynamat formula or just peel off the plastic backing and flatten it with the roller. Also how long do you think it would take for 2 guys to do the job I don't have a garage so I have to find someone who can lend me some space as a result I cant take a few days to complete the project.