Hey guys,

I'm doing a big install on my 73. I love the car, but it is LOUD and HOT. You have to yell to talk to the person next to you when going down the highway, and in the summer time your feet are on fire from the heat coming from the exhaust under the floor boards - but I'm sure you can relate.

After researching many sound deadening and heat shielding products available, I determined that the SecondSkin products were the way to go for me. Yes, they are expensive, but also second to none.

http://www.secondskinaudio.com

Materials:
Shop Pack of Damplifier Pro
3 sheets of Over Kill Pro
1 sheet of Motor Mat
1 sheet of Heat Wave

Plan:

Damp Pro:
- Storage area
- Behind seats
- Floor
- Firewall as much as possible
- Doors & Trim
- T-Top Roof Panels maybe

Heat Wave:
- Floor above exhaust and transmission tunnel
- Interior side of the firewall

Overkill Pro:
- On top of the Damp Pro everywhere I'm not using Heat Wave.

Motor Mat:
- Hood and engine side of firewall (still undecided on this actually, opinions?)



I decided to attack the door panels first, a plastic cover for moisture taped in with masking tape was the first thing I saw.



Took that off...



The inside of the door was fairly easily accessible, with the exception of a steel beam in the inside of the door that was pretty close up against the body. Still, I was able to slide the Damp Pro up behind it and used a bent butter knife to smooth out up behind the beam. The inside of the door got plenty of coverage, and I was happy with it. You can see a bit of the coverage behind the power window motor.

I was being really careful clearance-wise so you can see the coverage isn't ideal on the outside of the door but I wanted to be initially cautious as it was my first time using the product. Actually after putting the door panel on and taking more measurements I should be able to fit Overkill Pro on top of the Damp Pro on the outside area as well as cover a bit more of the area I skipped (like around the top and sides of the door).





Got the seats and carpet out on the driver side, first picture is the area behind the seat going up to the storage compartment behind the seats. Second shot is just the driver side floor obviously.





Damp Pro has been really easy to work with.

The feeling and sound of closing the driver side door compared to the passenger side (which I haven't done yet) is pretty amazing. We'll see how it sounds inside there once everything is done... but I'm optimistic.

More to come...

 

How did you like the adhesion? I liked it but have only used it on bare clean metal.

 

I did some basic cleaning to the fiberglass on the inside of the door where I could reach, but even in the spots I couldn't (like behind the beam) it still seemed to stick well. After it was on there for a day I tried stressing it a bit by pulling on the sides, but it was on there nice and good. It stuck real easy to the metal, just used a roller to get it all flattened out and stuck as best as possible.

I have some of their spray adhesive for putting the Overkill Pro on top of the Damp Pro, but haven't tried that out yet.

 

For the spray, it can get messy. Tape of or wrap things close or in front of where you're spraying. It's not real bad, but be careful. In the doors too...it's a pain to get that crap off the glass that doesn't go all the way up.

 

The heavy plastic taped to the door is a watershield. GM put that on to keep any water that got between the glass and the door from getting into the cockpit..They didn't use masking tape,they had some black tape that kinda' looked like duct tape.

 

I got the passenger side door panel finished up, the passenger side seat and carpet pulled out, and the panels and storage area carpeting pulled out.

The first main thing I wanted to tackle was getting rid of the OEM sound deadening resin which was useless. I figured that scraping it out so the Damp Pro would have a good clean smooth surface to stick to (the fiberglass) would be more effective than sticking Damp Pro to rough jagged OEM resin. Plus, more clearance for when I put in the Overkill Pro.

Before:



Results:



I used a paint scraper and a blow dryer, it worked surprisingly well. You can see especially on the driver side that I got a lot of it up, compared to where the blow dryer is on the passenger side where it's still thick.

Behind the seats, carpet pulled, laying first sheet down...



Still working on that area...



Passenger side behind seats completed.



I'm going to tear out the OEM insulation under the carpet in the back (you can see it in quite a few of these pictures) and instead use Overkill Pro in those spots. It's about the same thickness.

Still have to finish up removing that OEM resin and fix about an 8 inch area I found where fiberglass panels had become un-bonded before I'm going to start laying the Damp Pro on the floor.

Stay tuned...

 

Great project post Thanks for taking the time to take pics and post narative. I get too impatient to stop, and just keep working...

Keep up the good work
Eddie

 

Thanks for taking the time to take (and post) all the pics.

How does the cost of this compare to the spray on snakeskin? What made you decide to go this route?

 

When using the spray it depends on the thickness you lay down for how far it goes, but even if you put down a pretty thick layer (3-4mil) I think it would be cheaper than going with Damp Pro for the base layer and possibly block more sound/heat.

But, that stuff is messy! From reading the forums on the SecondSkin site, knowing how much prep work would go into getting the car ready, worrying about getting over-spray in my interior, and the limited access spots I wanted to install the material, I decided going with the mats would be simpler, cleaner, and all in all just much easier to work with.

 

Great project & pics .... I did my floor with Dynamat extreme. Just doing this made a huge difference. I still need to to the doors and and the luggage area .... Let us know how it works

 

Finished up the Damp Pro in the luggage area on the driver side...



Once I finished laying the Damp Pro in that area, I decided to work on the Overkill Pro for that area so I could get it all buttoned back up before I tackled the main compartment. So, I used the old insulation as a template...



Glue on, getting ready to lay the first piece down.



Got a few big sections of Overkill Pro down...



You can kind of see in the following picture that I got a nice big piece attached the top of the luggage compartment. It adhered better than I thought it was going to with gravity working against it for the initial "stick".



Still have a lot to do back there with the Overkill Pro, but I ran out of glue! I had experimented with it a bit before tonight, and those cans go a lot faster than I expected. One isn't nearly enough. Time to order a few more cans at least.

Oh well, plenty of prep work and other areas of the car to work on with Damp Pro in the mean time.

That's good to hear. I think I'm still a few weeks from being done depending on how much time I'm able to get out in the garage, but I can't wait for the results!

 

Wow that looks great.

 

Very nice.
I went with the Lizardskin spray because of the results I have read about and they used it on Project SharkAttack and said good things.
The mat is definitely an easier and cleaner install, and I'm sure still provides awsome results, I read about some of the asphault based mats not sticking so well depending on surface prep. Looks like your doing a very nice job and I'm sure your results will be well worth the effort. That rear compartment looks very well insulated

 

[This comment may be unnecessary, but....] You MUST put heat proofing over as much of the tranny tunnel as possible. Under the guage cluster and radio, under the heater control...everything. The tranny tunnel gets a lot of heat from the engine compartment and the transmission itself. Floor, tunnel, and firewall are the top 3 culprits, IMO. If you do a complete job, you will be elated with how cool the cabin stays.

 

Finally got out there again and got some work done... I spent a lot of time scraping out the OEM sound deadening resin the last several times I've been working on it. I'm not sure the benefit is going to out weigh all the work I've done getting it out, but I figured going through all this effort I may as well get it right.

Also finished gluing down Overkill Pro on top of all the Damp Pro in the luggage area, got the carpet back in, all the trim pieces back on, and the seat belt hardware bolted back on. That area is now finished. I don't have a good picture to post of this, but the coverage was great. With that area all covered and once I put the Overkill Pro on the area behind the seat backs, I'll be really close to using all of what I ordered up.

Finishing up the passenger side with Damp Pro...



Using the old carpet insulation as a template, I made the same form on my sheet of heat wave. I test fit this and it fits great! The piece off to the left is just to show what the foil side of heat wave looks like. I have just enough heat wave to make a similar cut-out for the driver side with some small pieces left over.

Looks like I came really close to ordering just the right amount of materials, which makes me happy.



Some heat wave on top of Damp Pro over the tranny tunnel...



On the driver side I found a good 8 inch area where the fiberglass panels had become un-bonded. I could stick my fingers up through it from under the car. Waiting on some materials to show up so I can repair that, then will get to laying the Damp Pro on the driver side and finishing this project up, can't wait to hear the difference!


-Joe

 

Your pics. look great and the install will be worth it in cooler inside temps!!