Cones of Silence...... well not quite, but having done under the outside edges of the seats with butyl, foam & some other acoustic foam that I had as it was a lot thicker. Filled each space completely.

Fully lined the wheel arch cover & covered the under side of the wheel arch foam filler block, forward of the wheel arch. Just tried to fill in everywhere with foam, also left over bits engine bay liner. Tried to fill in things forward of the rear wheel arches as best as v. Even filled the two cubby holes at the rear seat belts, the panel pulls off.

The back of the sill panels with foam 12mm or 6mm, bottom of B pillar facing the doors with butyl, Below the C Column with butyl.

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Looking for places to stuff offcuts. I removed the plastic panel the wipers go through. The hardest part was freeing the wipers. I put some multigrips under the wiper arm around the drive shaft, not to grip it, but simply to create mass. With the nut (15mm) loosened off one turn, I carefully hit the nut with a hammer. The drivers side took 30 hits to break free, the passenger side only 3 hits. (mark a wiper so you know which one goes where when putting back in place, saves time thinking! Also mark on the glass with masking tape or post it note etc the position the wipers sit before taking off)

Once the wipers were off the rest was easy, unscrew the clip pins at the front. I cleaned everything out, quite a bit of red dust. Pulled the plastic strip off the bottom of the windscreen, the volume of dirt, sand & fine muck in the strip & on the bottom edge of the glass was surprising.

I unclipped the plastic bottom half of where the cabin air first goes through the grill in the plastic panel & cleaned that out as well.

In this bay I stuck on some butyl followed by engine bay insulation, Just did the easier areas & not around the wiper side as this was really dirty from dust. Also up under the windscreen back to the firewall, there is a nice flat area, put butyl & engine bay insulation there as well.

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Putting butyl & acoustic foam behind the tweeters has quietened the mirror motors quite a bit & lowered the tone so they don't sound so tinny. The subtle tone from the motors sounds quite nice now!

Also hoping that filling this area & the plastic trim around the door will cut back the mirror wind noise. Haven't had a chance to test this out but everything is so much quieter here that I can't see why there shouldn't be a worthwhile improvement.

Templates for mirror & tweeter area. The images are for an A4 printer so do not scale, just crop, there should be enough margin around the edges.

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A bit of tidying up. The rear door needed a few bits removed so the panel would sit flush on the door. While at it I ran a 20 to 30mm strip of leftover engine bay insulation around the plastic door frame trim, it does deaden it a bit. When removing the plastic trim start from both ends as it gets a bit stuck at the top of the fixed window vertical metal dividing frame. When putting it back on, the top corners you will need to get a thin screwdriver or butter knife & ease the plastic over the rubber around the curved corned. It's not difficult, just be patient.

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I bought a roll of the van liner, 10mm thick with a foil face. The foil has a fibre in it so it is not completely useless. It is the same foam as the others so has a good volume if you need to fill things up quickly & it sticks to itself really well.

3mm, 6mm, 11mm & 10mm:

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A bit more up above the pedals & steering column. An absolute sh_t of a job. Too old for this stuff so here are the templates for the lazy ones!

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Cheers for all the info in this post chaps - will be slowly doing this as and when i can (probably over several years!).

Started this weekend with the engine cover. Had ripped out the foam as had been soaked with diesel after a leak. Very obvious reduction in engine noise immediately - cut back a lot of the high notes of the engine and whole car sounded smoother. Seems to be holding up to the heat just fine as well.

Looking forward to doing the rest of car

Haven't been in the car much lately but have stuffed offcuts in these corners. You can get quite a bit of foam on the passenger side filling in the gaps around a large electrical fitting. Seems to help a bit quietening things a bit from the front tyres. It's not difficult & better than throwing offcuts away!



Edit 1: Went for a drive today, definitely a bit less noise coming up from this area. As said before, not a lot, but a bit here & there all helps.

Edit 2: I have leftovers of this accoustic insulation from setting up a computer room. I have put a few bits over the rear shocks to fill up space previously.

Now I have filled up the area above the glovebox, the under side of the dashboard & any other areas in there I could stuff a bit of insulation. It works really well deadening this area. The triangle profile is not necessary it's just what I had. Bulk thickness helps with the lower frequencies.



Have to have another poke around the driver's side to see if there are a few spaces where I can stuff a bit in there.

Edit 3: There is a fair bit of room behind the dashboard on the right of the steering wheel. Access from the side is a bit tight but I just poked in offcuts of the acoustic foam, squashing them up to get through the hole. There are a couple of cables so just be a bit careful & push them to the side a bit. I also folded up a few pieces of 6mm acoustic insulation & pushed them into a gap behind the panel next to the airbag panel. Also stuck a bit of 6mm on the back of the trim panel I pulled off to get access.

Overall probably the easiest job on the whole car.




Edit 4: I have stuffed bits of pyramid foam in gaps around this area (the Carbuilder foam I had already done) & it has made a bit of a difference, so now all gaps between components have foam, & pushed some more foam in gaps behind the panels (not taken off in this photo). So well worth using up any off cuts. The pyramid foam work well here, after it is pushed into the gap & massaged a bit it expands to fill the gap.

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I had a bit of a poke around the console, some spaces around the edge. I didn't fill up the centre area completely as I think there needs to be a bit of air flow so components don't overheat. The outside faces of the 2 air ducts I stuck on some 6mm acoustic foam (not shown in photo).



Always seem to loose a metal clip off the top speaker trim panel. I have some spares. Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

Acoustic insulation ARB TPMS 3xARB air compressors After cooler Air tank On-board OCD pressure air/water cleaning Additional 50L fuel Carpet in doors ABE 2x1kg Waeco 28L modified fridge Battery 4x26ah Solar 120w Victron MPPT 100/20 DC-DC 18amps 175amp jumper plug Awning 6x255/60R18

Edit 1: I pulled out the vent, stuffed in small bits of pyramid foam. Also unscrewed the dashboard speakers, they were a little difficult to lift out as the metal edge towards the centre of the car would catch on the dashboard, but it not difficult to remove as such. Stuffed a bit more foam around the edge of the speaker opening.







It took quite a tug to put the vents out as the 2 metal clips hold on very well. One did bend, but I bent it back, probably after 2 or 3 times it would work harden & snap.


Have been replacing trim panel clips with ones with a rubber gasket, another little thing to reduce noise transmission.


Edit 2: I have partly removed the console between the front seats. Found a few spaces in there, but careful to leave enough clearance for the console sliding cover.

So, some pyramid insulation on the small section of bare metal of the transmission tunnel, a block of foam under the forward & permanent cup holder & electronic handbrake, some insulation down either side & behind the gear stick mechanism.

Also a few small bits of pyramid insulation at the rear of the console under that tray at the tail end.


I also removed the plastic trim (2 screws up through the top) around the driver's instrument panel. There is a reasonably large gap above the actual display & under the dashboard, so pushed pyramid insulation in the gap. While at it I ran a power supply from the fusebox to my ARB TPMS sitting in the bottom left corner of the instrument display.


Have also filled in the bottom of the A column trim panels with pyramid foam to the bottom of the airbag mounting. Also more under the dashboard right up in the corner under bottom of the windscreen, passenger side.


I have removed the rear footwell carpet mat holders ages ago, they were a pain in the neck when carrying water containers for camping. There is a hole roughly 5cm to the bare metal floor, so stuffed a lot of offcuts of pyramid foam in through the pairs of small holes through the carpet.


After getting the car back together went for a drive to make sure everything works. Well, that was an improvement in noise reduction, probably one of the biggest single steps in improvement to date. Those Cones of Silence are looking that bit closer, very happy!


Edit 3: Some technical reading in this link, Sound Absorption Coefficient, but there are some easier to understand graphs further down the page. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engin...oefficient


Edit 4: I have stuffed some pyramid foam in these structural sections, through the hole around the air vent to the rear, & some small long strips through the 2 small holes close to the door, with a stick.



Also a bit up under the seats. Also pushed some up the B column making sure it doesn't interfere with the seatbelts.


(Compressors under driver's seat)

The car is sounding good, well, what left there is to hear! Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

Acoustic insulation ARB TPMS 3xARB air compressors After cooler Air tank On-board OCD pressure air/water cleaning Additional 50L fuel Carpet in doors ABE 2x1kg Waeco 28L modified fridge Battery 4x26ah Solar 120w Victron MPPT 100/20 DC-DC 18amps 175amp jumper plug Awning 6x255/60R18

'New Jaguar Land Rover noise cancellation tech helps reduce driver fatigue.'

https://www.jaguarlandrover.com/news/2020/...er-fatigue

'The technology, introduced on the new Jaguar F-PACE, new Jaguar XF and Range Rover Velar, is capable of lowering unwanted noise peaks by 10dB and overall noise levels by 3-4dB – the equivalent of turning down the in-car sound system by four ‘steps’. This significant reduction in exposure to low-frequency noises up to 300Hz can help prevent driver fatigue on longer journeys**.'



Edit 1:

An interesting article reducing noise on a 4WD bus. I know it's not a car but there are a few numbers & graphs to take onboard if one is going through this process of installing acoustic insulation.

https://www.megasorber.com/soundproofing-case-studies/4wd-coach

'At a cruising speed of 80km/h, it is evident that:

Before soundproofing, the overall noise level was about 76 dB(A). The vehicle had a very high whining noise level at 800Hz — 12 dB(A) higher that the noise level at other frequencies. This whining noise was the main cause of passenger discomfort and headaches.

The Megasorber soundproofing package reduced the overall noise level from 76 dB(A) to 68 dB(A).

This soundproofing package also reduced the whining noise by 9 dB(A), ie. from 75 dB(A) to 66 dB(A). As a result, it dramatically reduced the level of annoyance.'



I have bought some 25mm thick foam with & without mass loaded layer for a bit of experimenting.




Edit 2:

I have added the 25mm foam (non mass loaded) to the front 1/3 section & the car seemed quieter, more so from outside. A lot of room in the ceiling.

Have now done the middle & rear sections. With the 10mm foam I originally put in the roof it is all acting like an acoustic bass trap, a tight bass which is nice.

Will have to take it for a decent drive, but the first brief impressions are that the things are quieter from other cars passing.





Stuffed some foam through the holes, the area in the roof above the doors.

 Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

Acoustic insulation ARB TPMS 3xARB air compressors After cooler Air tank On-board OCD pressure air/water cleaning Additional 50L fuel Carpet in doors ABE 2x1kg Waeco 28L modified fridge Battery 4x26ah Solar 120w Victron MPPT 100/20 DC-DC 18amps 175amp jumper plug Awning 6x255/60R18

I have been for a drive now with the additional 25mm plus the first lot of 10mm I originally put in the roof. I also stuck 10mm on the ceiling lining just over the driver & front passenger, second round of pulling the car apart. This was to try & balance the noise in the car, because I found if you get the rear too quiet, the car sounds wrong.

Wow, that was impressive!

The additional 25mm foam showed how much sound was coming into the car via the ceiling even though it never felt like the sound ever came from there. Probably there is some noise transmission through the largest panel of the car. The entire roof other than the two cross beams now has in total 35mm of foam & 45mm in the front third (the 45mm is a touch thick now, but as I already installed the second layer of 10mm on the top side of the ceiling liner I wasn't going to pull it off). The polyester batts I have left in the roof.

The car really feels like it has double glazing. Noise from other vehicles is impressively controlled, quiet & feels distant from the car.

The only "offensive" noises now are really a bit of transmission noise. As I have the petrol engine it will be a bit quieter than the diesel, but the lower pitch of a diesel should be well controlled.

The noisiest sound now is the all terrain tyres, even though the actual noise is in all respects pretty quiet. I purposely drove over reflectors on the road & other road imperfections which all are very quiet & sort of removed from the car. So the underlying noise from the tyres is that AT drone they make, more so when they are older.

In general on my last holiday I have noticed the the AT tyres seem to sound quieter on dirt roads than sealed roads. Concrete roads are really good now.

If you have road tyres I think the quality of the sound would be truely impressive, or even better road tyre with foam inside.

For those in Australia, Whitworth Marine have the 25mm foam, you will need 2 sheets for the ceiling. I have used the non mass loaded foam in the roof, but I had bought a sheet of mass load foam but did not use this. I got this for the engine bay & have cut a few pieces to test but removed them at this stage. Now with the roof done adding more in the engine bay I don't think it is worthwhile.

For those with skylights if you can fill the roof around the edges without interfering with the roof mechanism I think it should improve sound quality a lot.

Tip, ceiling clip:

If you broke the clip at the rear of the ceiling panel to hold it up (I forgot to take a photo) I ground 2 edges off a LR013135 clip, so the 4 retainers were not north south in relation to the car but at 45°, with an angle grinder (a file will do) & fitted it into the part which slides into the part glued onto the ceiling liner. Works really well. Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

Acoustic insulation ARB TPMS 3xARB air compressors After cooler Air tank On-board OCD pressure air/water cleaning Additional 50L fuel Carpet in doors ABE 2x1kg Waeco 28L modified fridge Battery 4x26ah Solar 120w Victron MPPT 100/20 DC-DC 18amps 175amp jumper plug Awning 6x255/60R18

Just, wow

Very impressive, worth doing if I ever have to strip the
motor out again.
Dave DAVE.

A few weeks ago I put my 2 spare unused all terrain tyres on the front, basically no noise from the front from tyres. Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

Acoustic insulation ARB TPMS 3xARB air compressors After cooler Air tank On-board OCD pressure air/water cleaning Additional 50L fuel Carpet in doors ABE 2x1kg Waeco 28L modified fridge Battery 4x26ah Solar 120w Victron MPPT 100/20 DC-DC 18amps 175amp jumper plug Awning 6x255/60R18