Hello all,
I originally started this project as a carpet cleaning exercise. There was a black oily stain on the drivers side floor that I couldn't seems to shampoo up. I intended to take out the carpet, and go at it with a pressure washer and some Simple Green. That where this whole thing began.
I pulled all the seats and lower trim out and stowed it in the garage -
I pulled the carpet out and laid it on the driveway to assess the situation. You'll see the dark area that was the stain in question on the upper left hand corner, plus the loads of dog hair-
Inspecting the existing heat shield/sound deadener, I found that in some places, notably the drivers side and passenger side floor pans, it had deteriorated. I was able to scoop of some gooey chunks with a putty knife. I assume this may have been what caused the stubborn stain on the drivers side. I decided at least to take this up and re-lay some aftermarket stuff in its place. It's tough to tell from the picture but you can see that the carpet padding had kind of fused with it -
I thought I'd remove all the other stuck padding with a brush, tried my dogs wire brush and a scouring pad neither worked, I finally decided on using a slag brush from my welding rig-
This was turning into a headache and I wasn't really getting good results. After finding a few more deteriorated spots and not really being able to clean the padding from the factory deadener, I decided it was time to go nuclear and rip it all out. Putty knife, screw driver, razor knife and several gouges and scratches in the sheetmetal later, this obviously wasn't working. Did some googling and learned about the dry ice route. Dropped buy the local Publix and picked up 5 pounds of the stuff. That was enough for one floor pan and another small section about the same size. From the supermarket, it came in blocks which I crushed with a mallet for better coverage -
I was going to need alot more dry ice. Found a localish supplier, Continental Carbonics, that sold the stuff in pellet form for about a buck a pound (half the supermaket price). Loaded up the cooler and got 40 pounds of the stuff. I found it easier to put it in plastic shopping bags and kind of hang it off fixtures in the interior, especially for the vertical surfaces. One key to this is to make sure to let it sit for a while. Ten to fifteen minutes per area. I had 3 areas going at once and rotated between them as I worked, this made the process faster. You'll be able to hear the deadener popping loose when the ice has done its work. The freezing does a couple of things i think, first it makes the deadener brittle and second it contracts the metal a bit. I was able to pull lift off large chunks of it at once after it was sufficiently frozen.
After removing all that I could with the ice method, there was still a good bit of residue in place, as well as some little chunks here and there. Especially in the channels, and as my wife calls it "the built in leg warmer" on the passenger side -
I tried simple green and a scouring pad (ineffective) , some paint brush cleaner, which also removed the paint (duh), the slag brush and some Goof Off (worked well on the residue, not so much on the little stubborn chunks), finally said the heck with it and went and dropped 8 bucks on a wire wheel brush for a drill. I had already decided i was going to have to repaint it. After a few hours with that, which I'm sure the neighbors loved, it made huge racket, I felt like everything was nice and cleaned. -
After the Goof Off and slag brush cleaning -
Sorry, don't have a picture after the wire brush cleaning, was too beat to take anymore, was alot of work
Now there were lots of little dings, scratches and gouges, not to mention my little experiment with the paint brush cleaner that left exposed metal. Got a couple of rattle cans of filler primer and went over all the areas where the factory deadened had been installed, and let that dry for a couple of days, til there was no more paint smell.
Now it was time for the Dynamat install, which I thought would be the easy part. I was wrong. It was by far the most time intensive task yet. As I'm rather meticulous, it took me over 4 days and 20+ hours to do the whole thing. Granted I didn't work non stop and I was distracted now and then, but it was alot more work than I estimated.
....Continued in next post
I originally started this project as a carpet cleaning exercise. There was a black oily stain on the drivers side floor that I couldn't seems to shampoo up. I intended to take out the carpet, and go at it with a pressure washer and some Simple Green. That where this whole thing began.
I pulled all the seats and lower trim out and stowed it in the garage -
I pulled the carpet out and laid it on the driveway to assess the situation. You'll see the dark area that was the stain in question on the upper left hand corner, plus the loads of dog hair-
Inspecting the existing heat shield/sound deadener, I found that in some places, notably the drivers side and passenger side floor pans, it had deteriorated. I was able to scoop of some gooey chunks with a putty knife. I assume this may have been what caused the stubborn stain on the drivers side. I decided at least to take this up and re-lay some aftermarket stuff in its place. It's tough to tell from the picture but you can see that the carpet padding had kind of fused with it -
I thought I'd remove all the other stuck padding with a brush, tried my dogs wire brush and a scouring pad neither worked, I finally decided on using a slag brush from my welding rig-
This was turning into a headache and I wasn't really getting good results. After finding a few more deteriorated spots and not really being able to clean the padding from the factory deadener, I decided it was time to go nuclear and rip it all out. Putty knife, screw driver, razor knife and several gouges and scratches in the sheetmetal later, this obviously wasn't working. Did some googling and learned about the dry ice route. Dropped buy the local Publix and picked up 5 pounds of the stuff. That was enough for one floor pan and another small section about the same size. From the supermarket, it came in blocks which I crushed with a mallet for better coverage -
I was going to need alot more dry ice. Found a localish supplier, Continental Carbonics, that sold the stuff in pellet form for about a buck a pound (half the supermaket price). Loaded up the cooler and got 40 pounds of the stuff. I found it easier to put it in plastic shopping bags and kind of hang it off fixtures in the interior, especially for the vertical surfaces. One key to this is to make sure to let it sit for a while. Ten to fifteen minutes per area. I had 3 areas going at once and rotated between them as I worked, this made the process faster. You'll be able to hear the deadener popping loose when the ice has done its work. The freezing does a couple of things i think, first it makes the deadener brittle and second it contracts the metal a bit. I was able to pull lift off large chunks of it at once after it was sufficiently frozen.
After removing all that I could with the ice method, there was still a good bit of residue in place, as well as some little chunks here and there. Especially in the channels, and as my wife calls it "the built in leg warmer" on the passenger side -
I tried simple green and a scouring pad (ineffective) , some paint brush cleaner, which also removed the paint (duh), the slag brush and some Goof Off (worked well on the residue, not so much on the little stubborn chunks), finally said the heck with it and went and dropped 8 bucks on a wire wheel brush for a drill. I had already decided i was going to have to repaint it. After a few hours with that, which I'm sure the neighbors loved, it made huge racket, I felt like everything was nice and cleaned. -
After the Goof Off and slag brush cleaning -
Sorry, don't have a picture after the wire brush cleaning, was too beat to take anymore, was alot of work
Now there were lots of little dings, scratches and gouges, not to mention my little experiment with the paint brush cleaner that left exposed metal. Got a couple of rattle cans of filler primer and went over all the areas where the factory deadened had been installed, and let that dry for a couple of days, til there was no more paint smell.
Now it was time for the Dynamat install, which I thought would be the easy part. I was wrong. It was by far the most time intensive task yet. As I'm rather meticulous, it took me over 4 days and 20+ hours to do the whole thing. Granted I didn't work non stop and I was distracted now and then, but it was alot more work than I estimated.
....Continued in next post
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