Pathfinder Sound and Vibration Control

[racerken]

Hi,

This 4th of July weekend I decided to take my entire rear-seat back lower interior out of the car so I could apply sound and vibration absorbing rubber roofing material.

Summary: It works!

Problem: Road noise from bad michigan roads and tires which I think are 10k miles to end of life are causing all kinds of headaches when driving with the constant hmmm, rmmmm, bzzzz, especially at 70 to 80 mph.

Solution: You can either use the expensive material which costs about $100 per square yard or go to home depot and buy roof rubber with adhesive backing for about $25 per roll. My car took 4 rolls. I also had some heating/ventilation/duct foam/foil rolls and some accoustic batting.

After taking the entire interior out, I applied the rubber matting. Emphasis was placed on the wheel well area and all flat surfaces. I also applied foam in a cavity adjacent to the wheel wheel. (i'll add arrows later.)

Before

After

Before

After (notice the holes with foam pouring out?) I paid much attention to this side since the sub-woofer sits to the rear of the wheel well.

Before

After (I had to be careful here so that I did not obstruct the air intake for the rear fan.)



Last night, we road tested on Woodward with great success.

Notes: I broke some plastic fasteners and of course the dealers are closed on a national holiday(which the only time to work on cars). Next time I would buy a bag before hand. Also, a roller/brayer is a great tool to burnish the material to the metal body. Cleaning the surfaces also helps. Having a loving wife and eager son also helps.

Today, I plan to address the doors with a new method: double sided rubber mat + sheetmetal strip + rubber mat. This should get rid of the hollow sounding door.

I'll show you in about 2 hours.

[jhong1226]

WOW! Thats a lot of work! How long did it took you to do it?

[00QX4]

Wow, talk about patience with the removal and re-installation process of every part you took out. +1

[racerken]

Thanks for the compliments!

The original idea came after looking at the sound boards of pianos; the vibration may start at the strings but is projected by the board ( I also DIY piano repair ) . In my case, the vibration comes from the road surface, the exhaust, the powertrain, bad tires but is transmitted thru the body sheet metal. After years of thinking about it, 1 beer, a Guiness Draught kicked the project into high gear.

Dis-assembly: about 3 hours. (1 hour friday night with beer for liquid bravery.)
Tools: 10mm, 14mm, clip remover (I think that's what they are... looks like a bent wide pronged screw driver)
Remove all seats, seat belts, plastic trim, sub-woofer. It was all pretty straight forward.

Application: I cleaned all surfaces with cleaner but later discovered that some surfaces had some grease so I switched to acetone. Once cleaned, I just cut and pressed. This took about 8 hours on and off. We had a heat wave here in michigan and I don't have an air conditioned garage so once I reached the point of death, I had to rejuvenate inside.

Assembly: 2 hours with 2 family members helping and cleaning all the parts.

In the end, we are all happy.

The doors are work-in-progress... BTW, today is a Heat Advisory which means you can't stay outide for too long... good excuse to be lazy.

We just noticed that the sound system sounds much better.

Cheers,

Ken

[racerken]

Here are pictures of the door panels with rubber, aluminum sheetmetal applied. the finale was to adhere another layer of rubber sheet on top of the aluminum sheet.




Materials:


This Pathfinder now is as quiet as a luxury car, even on rough road surfaces.

BTW, if anyone ever tries to sell you rust protection, turn it down. All they do is drill holes into your body sheet and spray a greasy wax film. The Pathfinder sheetmetal has coatings which are quite capable of it's own rust deterent.

[funnyman82]

great job on the sound proofing racerken!!! looks like you took your time and did it right!
maybe you can pass by toronto and do this for my QX4...