Eliminating Interior Noise
By Adding Some Insulation
I should start by saying that my car was so noisy inside going down the road at highway
speeds you couldn't hardly hear yourself think. You certainly could NOT listen to the radio. So
it was time to do something about it.
Therefore, I went to Lowe's and bought a roll of home insulation and a couple cans of spray
foam insulation. I cut the pieces to fit and stuffed them inside the side panels of the car over
and around each rear tire area and across the rear of the back deck. You don't have to pull out
the interior side cover panels, I just loosened them up enough to stuff the insulation in behind them.
It does require that you pull all the rear interior trim molding loose in order to get the side panels
loose. Plus I stuffed a few pieces into the open areas I could access from the trunk area as well,
behind the side air vents.
(click on images to enlarge)
As you enlarge the images you'll see that I first sprayed the foam insulation into anywhere I could it
to go that would help quite things down and insulate the car from any form of road noise. Then I
cut a large piece of the house insulation and placed it over the rear deck area, where the rear shocks
mount.
NOTE: now is the perfect time to either change your rear shocks or at least make sure the bolts
for the rear shocks are tight and secure.
(click on photos to enlarge)
Notice the KING SIZE pillows laying on the floor in the rear. I bought 3 of them from Penny's
for just a couple bucks and they provide great sound deadening which is removable and very
inexpensive. It completely fills the HOLLOW, ECHOING void that had previously existed
under the back fiberglass trough area.
The most difficult aspect of the entire job was taking the BIG hard to handle fiberglass deck
in and out of the car. There's just not a lot of room to maneuver, so it must be bent, pushed
and pulled to get it out and back in. Of course having the roll bar in also made it even more
difficult but it actually wasn't in the way as much as I had anticipated.
While I had it out, I also attached my NITROS bolt mounting brackets to it as well. As you can
see in the center photo above and in the finished photo below.
(click on photo to enlarge)
It's amazing what a little insulation and a couple of hours of work can accomplish. My car is NOW
nice and quite inside. I can actually hear the radio and can carry on a conversation with someone
now, without having to YELL!
ADDITION!
When I was changing engines and trany's over to the new 347 stroker and the Tremec TKO
5 speed, naturally the interior had to come out for the tunnel modifications. SO......
I felt it was also an appropriate time to better insulate a few things that needed some
upgrading, such as the FIREWALL, the FLOORS, and the DOORS..
As you can see we stripped the interior for the tunnel cutting and welding. Shown here
I thought we might as well replace the firewall insulation pad and do whatever could be
done to better insulate the interior and eliminate as much road noise and heat, as well. SO.....
We are replacing the OLD torn up firewall insulation pad, which as you can see was letting
in a rather LARGE amount of engine noise and heat.
For the floors, I guarantee this 65 Mustang is gonna ride quite! I took carpet
padding from the back of a Fox Bodied Mustang and stripped the backing off of it
and added it on top of two more layers. This accomplished a couple of things. One
it raised the floor level up a bit so the stock preformed carpeting will now fit the
hump and tunnel, even though I have raised it 2" for the Tremec 5 speed. Plus it
is assured to make it ride a LOT quieter. After we got the complete carpet
installed, you almost couldn't tell the floor had been altered at all.
Here it is ALL done!
This shows the inside of the doors which we put some double backed aluminum insulation
I got from Summit Racing, which we cut to size and glued to the back of the doors behind
the glass. It's called COOL IT MAT and comes in 48" X 48" sheets for $50.95 per sheet
from Summit. I ordered 4 sheets to also use on the firewall, floors and doors as you'll see
later on. ITEM # THE-14110 from Summit.
If you have any questions or whatever just ASK. Got a Comment or Question?
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That's it for now folks.
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