Sound Deadener and Flooring
By Paul
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The first thing we did to our new van was to add some Noico sound deadener to the metal panels. This stops a lot of the resonance that the larger panel sections are prone to and drastically reduces noise. We ordered 2 boxes of the 80 mil 36 sqft Noico and it worked out almost perfectly to do the walls, ceiling, above the front headliner, inside the side and rear door panels and inside the passenger seat pedestal (to help with noise from our Chinese diesel heater).
All you need to do this is a sharp knife, a straight edge, sharpie, a roller, something to cut on, gloves so you don’t get cut from the metal edges and a cheap trim removal kit to get the door panels and foam blobs off. We left the doors and area above the headliner to last as we wanted to wait for the Thinsulate insulation to show up so we could do both at the same time.
With the Noico, you have to roll out the ripples on the foil side to make it smooth, which tells you it is properly adhered to the van’s metal surface. It goes quickly with 2 people, 1 cutting pieces and the other rolling them on. You’ll want to switch up as the rolling gets a bit tiring, especially on the roof. While we were doing the Noico, we also removed the black wiring conduit on the drivers side wall. This will let us move the wiring bundle up higher on the wall so we can hide it behind the upper cabinets. Try to remember to wear gloves so you don’t bleed all over the van.
Next step was the flooring. This turned out to be pretty straight forward and we were very happy with the results. We followed the basic flooring guide from Faroutride.com. We used some of our Noico sound deadener in the large valleys as well as some 1/2" plywood pieces in the large depressions so that the foam boards had a solid surface all around and wouldn’t flex over low spots. We used Silicon2 to attach the plywood to the metal floor. On top of this we put a layer of 1" foam XPS from home depot held to the van floor with Silicon2 again. Then we added a layer of 1/2" Baltic birch from Windsor Plywood on top using biscuits in the joins between the plywood pieces to keep them aligned. PL300 adheres the plywood to the XPS boards. We then added a bunch of weight onto everything overnight to help it all set up. A big part of all this was making a good template of the floor. We used some scrap amazon cardboard and brown paper to do this. It took a while to trace out and cut but it made the rest so much easier it was time well spent. After letting everything set up overnight while being weighed down, we sprayed great stuff in the gap between the wall and new floor layers. After an hour we trimmed it down to be level with the floor surface.
Final step is laying down the sheet of lino we bought from a local flooring company for $75CAD. We cut the sheet down so it was just a few inches too big on each side so we could lay it down in the van. We used the lines on the lino to make sure the sheet was oriented perpendicular to the walls. Then we went around the walls and cut the lino to fit with about 1/2" of space to the walls. Once the sheet was cut to fit we used 3M90 adhesive spray to attach it to the plywood floor. Then some aluminum trim was used at the front and rear to tidy up the edges. I also sprayed some great stuff under the carpet at the front where it transitions from the original floor height to the new 1.5" higher floor. This created a little foam ramp under the carpet so when we step on it you don’t feel a big cavity. After we were finished we laid the template back down to cover everything up for protection from spills etc.
Side and Rear Ford HD Sill Plates
When we bought the van off the dealer lot there was a big box in the back. Turns out our new van came with the Heavy Duty Ford sill plate kit. Since our floor is now ~1.5" higher than stock we added a piece of 2 by 8 under the side heavy duty sill plate which made it the perfect height for the new floor. Installed it with screws into factory holes and some PL300. At the back doors we attached the rear heavy duty sill plate. A piece of angle trim hides the new floor layer edges and silicon2 around the whole perimeter seals it all up nicely.
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