Fat Mat Sound Deadening
Installation
I recently followed a fellow TR6
owners restoration and one of the things he did was install sound deadening mats
throughout his car. I had never heard of such a product but a quick Google
revealed a number of products used mostly in the custom car audio business to
enhance the sound of the stereo system being installed. Dynamat is probably the
best known product but it's quite expensive, even on eBay! However, an eBay
search did return an equivalent product called
Fat Mat at a very reasonable
price from an outfit called
Kings of
Soundproofing. I went for the 18" x 30' roll which weighs in at a little over 20 pounds!
That's the downside to the installation, it adds weight. It's simple to install
as you can cut it with either scissors or a razor knife. You peel the backing
off to reveal a full sheet adhesive covering the mat. It works best at room
temperature but you can use a heat gun to work it in colder temperatures. I did
this work in my garage, heated by a kerosene bullet heater when the outside
temperature was in the 20's and had no problem. The mat was kept and cut to fit
in the house. I used my carpet as the template. I plan on covering the door
skins which means I'll probably end up replacing the window glass padding
felt-like mole-skin stuff that's in the channel. But that part will wait for
warmer weather as I want to make sure I get strong adherence to the door skin.
That's my To-Do List
taped to the windshield frame. |
|
Rear Deck and one side
of Gas Tank covered |
|
Floors done and that's
the ECM wiring on the floor for the TBI Conversion |
|
Back side of Rear Deck
Panel ready for installation |
|
Time to Fast Forward to June/July when heat guns aren't needed
to make the Fat Mat pliable. I have lots of Fat Mat left over so I plan on
tackling two areas: Doors and Trunk
I replaced the window channel felt with Velcro. Check
out the Window Channel link to see how I
did it. |
|
Once I got the doors done, I tackled the trunk which is like
one big boom box. I covered the floor and sides with Fat Mat and then the Fat
Mat with some cotton backed vinyl purchased from Jo-Ann's.
Here's the trunk all lined -
it also does a good job of covering all the
dirt! |
|
The bottom is covered in
vinyl and needs to be smoothed out a little
more. |
|
All done with spare tire back
in place.....which only had 20 lbs of air in it! |
|
All that work and not much to
see. |
|
And this is what the trunk
usually looks like: an old towel to put dirty
golf shoes on, 2 towels to cover hot seats, the
cockpit cover and 2 jackets for those cool
nights when you don't want to put the top up.
|
|
So, after about 4 hours work, the
trunk looks like the last picture and my wife comes out
to see how it all looks............um hon.......all you
can see is the top part of the two corners.....and only
then if I remove the towels and jackets. Oh well.....I
know it's there.
|