I'm giving you 10 points for effort , well done !
Anything to make the cabin more comfortable to be in is worth it l reckon :)

-- Edited by kesa32 on Saturday 6th of April 2019 06:53:10 PM

best place to get 3mm, 6mm, 10mm & 12mm acoustic foam?? idea of cost?
I'm in Perth :)

I have used "mass loaded vinyl" with foam on each side in the OKA which is available from marine stores.
For example... www.whitworths.com.au/sound-1-80x137-dlx
The best sound insulation is HEAVY. Lead sheet is often used where that is possible. The foam either side assists and the foil makes it better thermal insulation as well.
Cheers,
Peter

A few more photos.

Tailgate.

Tailgate trim panel & I stuck foam in the window trim panels as well.

Dashboard trim, there is a second layer of foam on top of this as there was enough room.

More dashboard trim.

Front door frame.

Front door frame trim. (Trim clip in foreground has rubber gasket, the other one doesn't)

A column trim, was careful to split the acoustic foam across the trim panel as this is designed to split for an airbag.

Boat carpet from Whitworths Marine.

(3rd air compressor & 4 litre air tank - actually only 3.7 litres as I filled it with water to measure as I felt it was a touch too small. All unclips for draining)

I have also lined the back of the glovebox with foam. Also used some mass loaded vinyl on the front footwells under rubber floor mats & ran it up the firewall to some extent.

Boat carpet in centre console. (TPMS now on dashboard. Worth its weight in platinum!)

I have 11 speakers around the car, sounds even better with acoustic insulation. The best bit is corrugated roads are more bearable!

I have partly removed the console between the front seats. Found a few spaces in there, but careful to leave enough clearance for the console sliding cover. So, some pyramid insulation on the small section of bare metal of the transmission tunnel, a block of foam under the forward & permanent cup holder & electronic handbrake, some insulation down either side & behind the gear stick mechanism.

Also a few small bits of pyramid insulation at the rear of the console under that tray at the tail end. I also removed the plastic trim (2 screws up through the top) around the driver's instrument panel.

There is a reasonably large gap above the actual display & under the dashboard, so pushed pyramid insulation in the gap.

While at it I ran a power supply from the fusebox to my ARB TPMS sitting in the bottom left corner of the instrument display.

Have also filled in the bottom of the A column trim panels with pyramid foam to the bottom of the airbag mounting.

Also more under the dashboard right up in the corner under bottom of the windscreen, passenger side. I have removed the rear footwell carpet mat holders ages ago, they were a pain in the neck when carrying water containers for camping.

There is a hole roughly 5cm to the bare metal floor, so stuffed a lot of offcuts of pyramid foam in through the pairs of small holes through the carpet.

After getting the car back together went for a drive to make sure everything works.

Well, that was an improvement in noise reduction, probably one of the biggest single steps in improvement to date. Those Cones of Silence are looking that bit closer, very happy!

I have added the 25mm foam (non mass loaded) to the front 1/3 section & the car seemed quieter, more so from outside. A lot of room in the ceiling.

Stuffed some foam through the holes, the area in the roof above the doors. 

Have now done the middle & rear sections. With the 10mm foam I originally put in the roof it is all acting like an acoustic bass trap, a tight bass which is nice. 

Will have to take it for a decent drive, but the first brief impressions are that the things are quieter from other cars passing.

 

 

I have been for a drive now with the additional 25mm plus the first lot of 10mm I originally put in the roof. I also stuck 10mm on the ceiling lining just over the driver & front passenger, second round of pulling the car apart. This was to try & balance the noise in the car, because I found if you get the rear too quiet, the car sounds wrong. 

Wow, that was impressive! 

The additional 25mm foam showed how much sound was coming into the car via the ceiling even though it never felt like the sound ever came from there. Probably there is some noise transmission through the largest panel of the car & also that the entire roof now has in total 35mm of foam & 45mm in the front (this is a touch thick now, but as I already installed the second layer of 10mm on the top side of the ceiling liner I wasn't going to pull it off). The polyester batts I have left in the roof. 

 

The car really feels like it has double glazing. Noise from other vehicles is impressively controlled, quiet & feels distant from the car. 

 

The only "offensive" noises now are really a bit of transmission noise. As I have the petrol engine it will be a bit quieter than the diesel, but the lower pitch of a diesel should be well controlled. 

 

The noisiest sound now is the all terrain tyres, even though the actual noise is in all respects is pretty quiet. I purposely drove over reflectors on the road & other road imperfections which all are very quiet & sort of removed from the car. So the underlying noise from the tyres is that AT drone they make, more so when they are older. 

 

In general on my last holiday I have noticed the the AT tyres seem to sound better on dirt roads than sealed roads. 

 

If you have road tyres I think the quality of the sound would be truely impressive. 

 

For those in Australia, Whitworth Marine have the 25mm foam, you will need 2 sheets for the ceiling. I have used the non mass loaded foam on the roof, but I had bought a sheet of mass load foam but did not use this in the ceiling. I got this for the engine bay & have cut a few pieces to test but removed them at this stage. Now with the roof done adding more in the engine bay I don't think it is worthwhile. 

 

For those with skylights if you can fill the roof around the edges without interfering with the roof mechanism I think it should improve sound quality a lot.

 

Conclusion: Butyl for stopping metal resonating, but you do not need to go overboard with this. Which is good as the butyl is heavy. Use as much foam as possible & as thick as you can fit in the space. Probably up to about 50mm if that is possible. Doors & behind boot trim panels, fill in as much as you can. 

Get spare trim panel clips as you will break them. Trim panel removal tools, not that you need them much, but they are really worthwhile when needed & a roller for the butyl.

 

Lot of time and learning  and  the pay off is the satisfaction at the end when the results are as anticipated or sometimes even better ...well done.

KJB wrote:

---

Lot of time and learning  and  the pay off is the satisfaction at the end when the results are as anticipated or sometimes even better ...well done.

---

 Thanks for your observations.

It has been an interesting process & I was often pulling the car apart for something else anyway. I did a lot of hunting around the internet & couldn't find any really good quality information & really thorough jobs.

After one has pulled the trim panels off once, it is a piece of cake second time around. To get the ceiling down I have to pull off every panel starting with the boot sill trim, all columns, handles, sun visors. Install foam & all back together in 2.5 hours. So it's not that much of an effort.

We plan on keeping the car but on the remote possibility we do replace it, installing acoustic insulation will be the very first thing I do.

It is the same as sticking insulation in the house, which we have done extensively, you don't see any bling, but you get quality of life.