What to use for under carpet?

[KAL7467]

picking up a 71 240 this weekend and it has a new carpet kit from black dragon I believe...but under the carpet is nasty brown crap. the floors are in great condition no rust at all. i want to put some sound dedening material and insulation under the carpet when i take it out to get the brown mess out. what should I use? was thinking i could get what i need at home depot...any ideas? thanks in advance...

[EScanlon]

Are you referring to the "horse hair" padding?

Or is your car a brown color and you're referring to the tar mat sound deadening material applied at the factory?

If the first, you can use more modern felt padding, but you may want to spray some Scotch Gard to prevent water absorption.

If the latter, that IS the sound deadener material. One note however, that tar-mat was applied on many of the cars BEFORE any paint was applied. 40 years later, you may have some rust going on beneath that tar mat.

FWIW

E

[KAL7467]

thanks it is I believe what you call the horse hair and I am hoping to upgrade to something more modern... there is paint under it and no rust that I could see so I think I am ok on that end...thank you for your help...

[EScanlon]

When you say "there is paint under it and no rust", I cringe.

Here are two pairs of pictures. One pair shows the passenger's foot floor area, the other shows the area under the seat.

While there was some indication of rust, it didn't seem to be as bad as the actual problem ended up being. You may definitively want to look at the floor's condition. If your car is a Concourse competition candidate, then you may want to consider if losing a couple of points is worth having a rusty floor.

As far as the padding, go to either a Marine Supply house or specify OUTDOOR use carpet padding. Just be careful of getting the reconstituted sponge rubber padding, as it really is pieces of sponge rubber all glued togetherl, and you don't want to put a sponge in contact with your sheet metal.

FWIW

E

[KAL7467]

why do you cringe? i dont mean it looks like someone did touchup on it. I just mean it looked not rusted and coated in something not just bare sheet metal...but when i go to pick it up sunday I will give it a closer look. as far as the underside of the floors they also looked good imo. is that not a good thing? kind of confused now...

[zbane]

What E is saying is that just because it looks rust free, it may not be. In the photos he provided, you can see "rust free" ... er, well... not so rust free once the paint was removed...

Do you happen to know any Z owners in the Atlanta area?

Might be worth it to take one with you for a walkaround before money is exchanged.

Edited November 12, 2010 by zbane

[tlorber]

On a not completely unrelated note, has anyone here ever sprayed or coated the plastic interior panels with a sound deadener or insulator? Seems like a decent way to cut out some noise without gaining much weight and I happen to have a few of the pieces out right now.

TIA for any input.

[KAL7467]

cool now that you explain it that way I totally see what you guys are saying. didnt bring a z owner to look at it but brought my boss who restores older cars and is a body paint guy that I trust and he gave me a thumbs up on the car. I will do a bit more inspection before I pay them on sunday...thanks for the quick answers...

[Davis]

Escanlon pretty much tells it all - I had pretty much the same case

here is what I did

- remove seats and console0

- remove all the tarmat

- remove all the rust and patched some bad areas with metal

- paint entire floor seat rails etc with POR 15

- cover entire floor (glued) 1/8" vinyl floor deadener material (or use fatmat)

- installed new GM sound insulation (came from cube van)

- installed new carpeting

I also painted the interior plastic diamond vinyl with SEMS colorcoat satin black before putting everything back together

much quieter now and looks like NEW!!

[five&dime]

I did the entire interior of my 510 with dynamat and loved it. So much so that I just did my BMW as well. Now the BMW is super quiet on the highway. Although I did it more to eliminate squeeks and rattles and just installed a whole new stereo system.

For an original restoration I would stay away from dynamat but if you want to reduce noise, it's the only stuff I would use.

[Reverend]

Yepp. I'll double that. Im planning to remove all the panels and put dynamat everywhere i can. I recently put it on doors and its working.

[stegreco]

I also am going to put dynamat on my 280Z. I want to put it up as far as I can on the firewall. I read that it helps on noise reduction. Would putting strips on the inside of the doors, rear hatch and the rear quarter panels also reduce noise. Thanks for the feedback