Sound-deadening pt2

Just a quick update. The cheaper sound-deadening material went down on the floor and had much the same effect as Dynamat; the van now feels much more 'solid' and quieter.

The last of the Dynamat went on the roof in the spots that VW didn't seem to bother with! This weekend's work has made a massive difference and well worth the outlay.

As a side-job I even managed to unpick the wiring harness for the towing electrics and tuck it out of the way ready for carpeting.

Sound-deadening

The flash-banding used in a previous post was only ever going to do so much when it comes to sound-deadening. This, combined with a change of approach when it comes to carpet-lining, has left me with a need to do a little more to dampen the echoes of an empty van.

Dynamat in it's various forms has been around for a number years and seems to be de rigueur when it comes to lining the inside of a vehicle. I started reading up on sound-deadening on both the Caddy2k forum and the Edition38 forums to see what products others have used and how they applied it. The only downside of Dynamat - the cost.

My next port of call was eBay to see what sort of prices could be found on there. Pretty good, but after a little more searching and calculating price per square-foot, a car audio company selling on Amazon worked out the best.

I ordered five sheets of 18" x 32" Dynamat Xtreme - which is mainly used for car boots, doors and floors. This is to be used for the rear wheel arches and side panels. I also ordered several metres of an un-branded (and slightly thinner) version for the rear floor.
Easy to cut and apply, with a bit of pre-planning the Dynamat goes on in minutes:

A quick tap of the panels and the difference is instant; from tink-tink to thonk-thonk. Getting in and closing the doors no longer feels like getting in an empty van. More on the sound-deadening on the floor coming soon...

Winter Wheel Weekend

So back to the progress update; on go a few coats of Ford (yes, sorry) Graphite Grey. There wasn't many VW greys to choose from in the rattle-can section of Halfords, I went with this because it seemed to have a little bit of a blue hue to it - from what you can tell by the colour swatch on the lid!

Then on to lacquer. If I wasn't feeling a bit spaced-out from the paint fumes before now, this would be the real dizzying part of the process!

After the lacquer I then put a heater on in the garage for an hour or so, Whether this makes a blind bit of difference or not, I'm not sure. But subconsciously I hope it helps the lacquer to harden and with a bit of luck protect the paint through Winter.


Finally, I rolled the wheels outside this morning to admire my work.

Good enough for now, and at around £10 per wheel, there's no complaints.

Winter steels

I've always been one for swapping my alloys for the original steel wheels at the end of a season; salty UK roads don't do any favours for pricey alloys.
So I was really happy that when buying the Caddy that it came with the original wheels. One down-side was a mis-match of tyre profiles - 2x 195/65/15 and 2x 195/70/15. Not ideal.

Knowing that I can move the wrong tyres on, an order was placed with Camskill (probably the prices for tyres anywhere on the internet) for two replacements of the correct 195/65/15.

So now we're on to prep; hours of sanding, smoothing and masking. I would ideally have done this with tyres removed but I'm up against a deadline to get the wheels swapped.

More time taken at prep should result in a better result further down the line. Then, after one last clean, on with the primer.

With barely a dribble or run in sight. I've laid it on fairly thick; first a white etch primer, then a good couple of layers of matt grey primer. Images of the final colour and lacquer coats will be posted tomorrow.