I have the carpet out of the front of my 77 and am in the process of trying to figure out what insulation to put under there.

I am leaning toward either the Koolmat Product at about $100 for 8 square feet or the Zero Clearance product from Cool & Quiet at about $100 for 14 square feet.

I have some of the inexpensive stuff sold in rolls that needs to be cut ( I am concerned about the thickness of this product) and have read posts about thin insulation that can be purchased from the home stores (I went yesterday and was concerned that the fiberglass would compact over time and loose the insulation value). I have also seen reference to "Reflectix and EZ-Cool.

What have you guys used or would recommend?

Bob



[Modified by Bobchad, 11:52 AM 11/18/2002]

 

I used a double layer of the foil backed bubble stuff and had no problems with fit or the bubbles compressing. The bubble stuff is a thicker material than bubble wrap in mailing packages. And, you are not standing or anything on the floor - your feet are just resting there. And, you have a floor mat and then carpet to also disburse the force that would otherwise pop the bubbles. It worked for me.

 

Larry82,

How thick is this bubble wrap insulation and where did you get it?

Bob

 

Ironic question. I am in the midst of redoing my whole interior. I just bought at home depot the Reflectix stuff. The guys there had no idea whether it would work or not. My thinking is, right or wrong, the stuff IS designed to insulate and so there is no need to pay for S/D of car specific stuff. The big question I have is how to mate the seams. I was going to use aluminum tape but the only stuff I found was EXTREME. Probably too thick to use. I was going to overlap a tiny bit and then use real duck tape to seal everything.

What do y'all think?

Tim M.

 

Reflectix sells an aluminum tape for the seams as well.

One thing that Reflectix warns about on their site is the need for air spacing to get the maximum protection. That concerns me.

Bob

 

Yah, I read about the tape on the instructions w/ the Reflectix. Of course, I couldn't find the tape at the store. The only thing that I found was this hard core aluminum tape w/ silicone under it. It was designed for patching roofs. I am going to use it to plug my drain holes...

I made go off and do a search on that reflectix stuff...

Tim M.

 

Vettfixr has a good write up on this at
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/vettfixr/page14.htm

 

Duct tape it was for me!

 

I used some foil backed stuff I got at a local goodguy's show. It was cheap. Like $34 for two fat rolls and I have about half a roll left. It is made up of a composite type foam and it works GREAT. What a difference inside the car. i used aluminum foil tape on the seams and glued in little pieces to fill in every gap I could. $100 is WAY to much in my opinion. 14 square feet will not even do the entire front, you'll end up spending $300!!!! I think covering as much as possible and blocking all holes and seams/cracks is key.

Chris

 

I agree but on the other hand I want something as thin as possible.

Bob

 

EZ Cool! About 30 bucks for enough to do your car. Foil on both sides and it works. 717-624-3581

 

I just re-did my 77's interior, I used stuff from Home Depot and JC Whitney, Made a very noticable difference...there is NO such thing as "to much insulation"!!!!!

 

I used Dynamat Extreme. It works excellent. It's tar faced with a foil backing, so you can conform it to all types of contours. I bought the bulk pack, which is 36 Sq. Ft. for about $100 on Ebay. That was less than half of what the local stereo shops wanted. It made a huge difference.

 

Bought the Reflectix today at Lowes and will start putting it down tonight.

FYI, the foil tape is in the paint section with the duct tape, that's why it couldn't be found anywhere.

Bob

 

Same here. On a couple of old cars. It worked well.

 

How funny, I think this is the third post about winter repairs/upgrades that I am also currently doing. Last night I took out all of the front carpet and went to Home Depot to look for some of that insulation. Home Depot only seemed to have some really thick stuff that only had the foil on one side. Is this what you guys are using? I think it was about $19. I may check Lowe's tonight. Did you guys find it in the water heater section? And yeah, the tape is in the paint area. Also, the insulation I saw at Home Depot came with the tape so that's something you might want to consider.
Man, I tell you what though....I thought my carpet was pretty clean and in fairly good condition. When I took it out and can now see it in good light, it looks like crap. I'm thinking about replacing it but just can't decide if it's worth it. And what kind of adhesive are you all using for this stuff. Will the 3M spray adhesive work or do you need to get some of that nasty putty?

Also, while the carpet is out I'd like to get the fiber optics working again. Does anyone know of a way to splice together fiber optic cable? Is this possible? The last owner cut it right at the armrest area. Both sides are there but it's cut. What a doofus. I soooo don't want to have to try and replace the whole thing when it's all there minus a cut section.

 

Not that I have a ton of experience with this, but when I redid the interior on my 76 with the double foil backed insulation and aluminum tape, I encountered a problem that I hadn't thought of.

At the same time that I did the carpeting, I upgraded my stereo with two amplifiers, two 6" round speakers and a 10 inch subwoofer in the rear as well as component speakers in the front. This required me to get power directly from the battery to both the amps as well as the head-unit. Then to get the preamp signal from the head-unit to the amps, then the amplified signal from the amps to the different speakers.

I initially laid everything with high power on the drivers side, the antenna along the transmission tunnel, the low power preamp output on the passenger side of the transmission tunnel and then the amplified speaker wires along the door sil of the passenger side. I had everything working great until I started driving it.

The aluminum caused so much interference with the stereo in basically every part of the system, that I had to pull the carpet over the wires again and insulate the wires from the aluminum.

Just wanted to throw this in there since I spent a lot of money and time trying to figure out what was going on after building a custom system that sounded horribly initially. :)

 

Wow. I would have never thought about that. I need to run power to my back too... Mostly just for my bubbasized electronic antenna (added by previous owner) but also need to run speaker cables to the back for two 6x9 boxes.

I will probably try and find some sort of insulation just for the wires... Great heads up!!

THANKS

Tim M.

 

That is a good point. Then maybe it is better to buy the thick stuff that only has the foil on one side and run the wires on the side opposite the foil (between insulation and carpet).
Does anybody share my thoughts???

 

Dreamn2, nice looking Vette! How do you like that Yellow? Do you have any good pictures of the seats? Are they yellow also? Custom dyed?

TSHORT, I think either Ecklers or Mid-America sells a device to splice fiber optics. I think Corvettefaq.com has a write on it also, don't quote me. I know I read it somewhere, just not sure where.