Door Insulation

After I finished with the grills I turned my attention to dismantling the passenger door. I had a couple of objectives. First, I needed to figure out how to remove the exterior handles so I could have them powder coated and second I needed to get everything cleaned up and exposed so I could put in the sound dampening/insulation that I bought for the body panels.

Getting something in there that would make conversation without shouting at highway speeds possible has always been a goal. I've seen several people online that have put up a sticky-backed sound barrier inside of their body panels and along the floor/engine compartment but their solutions were really expensive. There are several products out there for this application like b-quiet, boom mats, etc. but most of those are over $100 for a 25 foot roll of the stuff. I wasn't interested in turning my van into a recording studio, I just wanted to quiet things a bit. So I started looking for alternatives. Thanks to the magic of The Samba and the Vanagon list I found a much cheaper solution. Many people swear by this roofing stuff that looks identical to the auto sound barriers but that stuff contains tar and explicitly says it is not for interior installation. I don't like the sound of that at all. Well I found a message on the Vanagon mailing list that mentioned a product available at Lowe's that is called Frost King duct insulation. This stuff is thicker than the roofing material, has a higher R value, contains no tar, and has no warnings against interior applications. Now I have no idea if this stuff works nearly as well as b-quiet but it costs $15 a roll so I decided to take my chances.

Once I removed all of my interior door pieces as well as the panel I was left with a dirty door that has the factory installed vapor barrier but no insulation.



Next, I removed the vapor barrier and cleaned up the door as best as I could. I didn't bother with removing the left over adhesive from the barrier but I did scrub most of the dirt and grime off the door to make sure that my new Frost King stuff would adhere well.



With the door nice and clean, I cut pieces of Frost King and put them on the largest flat surfaces that I could reach on the interior of the door. I've read that the flat metal acts like the head of a drum that is sounded by the wind while driving. Placing this insulation on the surface acts like a hand resting on the drum head. It doesn't get rid of the noise but it reduces it dramatically.



After jamming as much as I could get in cleanly on the inside of the door I put a layer on the outside of the door. I just covered the area that would be covered by the trim panel cutting holes for all of the mount points. It wasn't the cleanest work I've ever done but I'm not sure that perfection matters all that much here.



Here is the final photo of the day with the trim panel reinstalled. I'm still working on cleaning up the rest of the door parts along with waiting on a few replacements to arrive from GoWesty for the really bad bits. When I get all that finished then I'll give another before and after picture.



In the end I'm not sure that this stuff will make a difference but it just seems like its worth a try. Next up I'll be doing the driver's side door. Also, after a week of driving around a nice great sounding van I'm going to take lots of parts out of the van and make it undrivable for a bit. I'm getting my stuff to the powder coating guy next week so today I've got to pull whatever parts I'm going to get him to do. I'm also going to pull the front carpet for cleaning as well as a pile of small plastic parts for reconditioning over the next week. Next weekend all the pieces should come back together and it will be time to do some detailing. My goal is to get the van nice enough that I can take it to the local wash/detail guys and get them to do a final pass. They do awesome work but taking a vehicle in truly bad shape to them will make their heads explode. I don't want to make anyone's head explode.

One last thing, I talked about my fabric selections for the seat covers with my wife and she had a few ideas. I'm going to finalize my selection today and place the order tomorrow. That should make the first camping trip of the year (first weekend in May) be done in style. The van should feel almost new on the inside by then.