Sound deadening a 306

[Niall]

No deadening needed. You have to listen to the stones etc pinging off the bottom of the car and all the little rattles that you never knew you had. Or in my case a slightly "buzzing" rear box...

Now why did I strip my car again?

Because driving a stripped car is the best!!!

But when you get to your age you can't hear anything anyway so it doesn't matter!
I want to ruin my hearing with music and it needs to be loud and crystal clear!

[Pompey306mark]

My sound deadening for the day. Both rear doors but forgot to take a pic of the passenger side, and the boot.

Got enough left for the front doors and a few other areas.

[Ian]

No deadening needed. You have to listen to the stones etc pinging off the bottom of the car and all the little rattles that you never knew you had. Or in my case a slightly "buzzing" rear box...

Now why did I strip my car again?

Because driving a stripped car is the best!!!

Truth! Besides the '6/S16 engine makes the best tune anyway

[Niall]

Ok so got a bit more done today!

So to start with we need a nice big roll of cloud 9, some silent coat, a box of tools and some mechanical competence (if you have are missing either of the last 2, a rather large hammer will suffice!)

Cloud 9 and silent coat incase you don't know what sound deadening looks like




First of all we need to strip out the rear seats. If you don't know how to do this, not only should you not own a 306, but you are also a moron!
Firstly though, tea!



Had your tea? Good, I'm happy for you.


Strip out the rear so you end up with a car that looks like this. If your car is not china blue then it will probably differ slightly from the above image but the principle is much the same!

Remove the rear trim on the rear quarters and remove th shitty 'sound deadening' that put put in but don't bin it yet!

Take 2 sheets of silent coat and apply with heat as so! I'm fitting the silent coat in here as its a large flat surface which as I said earlier, will rattle!



Now, take your old deadeni g you removed, place on some cloud 9 and cut around it. Spray the back with a light covering of spray glue and fit. Also cover the wheel arch in it.



Now repeat for other side...unless you want a rather one sided sound deadened car... I wouldn't recommend it.

Next you want to do under the back seats. You need to remember that could 9 isn't very flexible so it needs to be put down in sections. Remove the old stuff, remove everything in the way and cut a piece to fit. I have glued it down but I have cut a section out where the pump is I case I ever need access....and it's a pug, so I probably will!



Next, need to do the wheel arches in the boot. This area is a no go really for cloud 9 so we will be using silent coat. Or you could go and ask the local pikeys to Tarmac it for you. What ever.....



Remember there isn't really any point in covering the whole thing as I explained in the beginning post. Unless you like extra weight and cost.

tomorrow I will be finishing off with the roof and floor

[Niall]

Ok so for the next section:
I would recommend putting aside half a day for this bit as taking out the front carpet can be a bit of a PITA. Unfortunately I ran out of time and only got the rear carpet done but you will get the idea.

Remove your seats and other bits so you can remove the carpets. Once again,being a 306, this is very straight forwards. Remember to remove the battery before you take the seats out. Air bags exploding in your face are painful to say the least!

The original sound deadening is crap to say the least but luckily it's not stuck down. Remove this and keep to one side. Get the hoover in there and remove all the crap. Start by cutting some strips of cloud 9 and use them to stuff the hollow box tubing that goes right under the front seats. This is a fantastic area for sound to resonate so the tighter you pack it, the better. Remember some wiring travels through there so take this into consideration and make sure it won't get snagged or damaged. If you have any aftermarket wiring running through here, please ensure its the right size. If its getting hot because it's the wrong size, it could be about to start a fire!

Next, cut a section to fit in the rear footwell. Spray glue it down in the middle and work out towards the edges. Don't cover cabling and use the cable clips around the exhaust tunnel to hold the edges of the cloud 9 down. Repeat for the other footwell.
Remember to cut holes for bolt holes in the sills for the seats and seat belts. Now start covering any other areas remembering to keep the paper side up. Try not to use in areas such as close to the handbrake as if it ges caught, it gets very stringy and gets into everywhere!
Now you have 2 choices. You can either use a second layer of cloud 9 over all of it or replace the original foam over the top. I went for the latter as there are some moulded parts in it which fill gaps between the carpet and floor like around the exhaust tunnel. It's also rather surprisingly waterproof so if you spill anything, the cloud 9 hopefully won't soak it up and need replacing.



You can see that in the photo, where the bit on top of the fuel tank meets the bit under the carpet, there is a nice big gap. Using duck tape, tape this up. It will stop it all from becoming unstuck and not leave a gap for crap to get into.

Replace carpet and interior as reversal of removal!

[Niall]

Doors:
I've done my doors with a combi of cloud 9 and silent coat.
We all know 306 doors rattle big time and you need to reduce these first before deadening the doors. No point of covering up a problem. The main two rattles are the door lock and the exterior rubbing strip.
If your door lock rattles, use white lithium grease and cover all the moving parts. It's messy but it keeps everything lubed up and stops the mechanical parts still nicely. Make sure all wiring is clipped to the door where it should be and it might be an idea to get the Hoover in the bottom of the door to get rid of all the rattling crap in the bottom!

Using small squares, dot some patches of silent coat around on the outer door skin. You don't need to do the entire door skin as we are only trying to weight the panel to stop reverberation.
Next, do the inner door skin. Remove all the foam covers and clean up the door. You will want to cover the entire door here making sure you don't cover holes for the door card clips.
You will never seal a door completely but the better you do, the better sound you will get and that is the main reason for covering the entire inner door skin. Not only that but also, this is the panel that rattles the most. Remember to heat the silent coat before applying it otherwise it will all fall of eventually.

Now, take your door card and a suitable size piece of cloud 9. Glue down the cloud 9 working it into all the grooves and holes. Don't cover the big chunk of foam on the card (like I did at first in the photo) otherwise the card won't go back on. Leave suitable gaps for cables and the mounts and try and keep it all trimmed around the trim clips. Glue it down paper side down. It's the foam side that absorbs the sound mostly so we always want this facing outwards on the car.
Refitting the door card is a VERY tight fit but it does work well as it also helps to stop various rattles on the card and absorb road noise. Once it's on, you won't want to take it off again!



Next: roof. Most people overlook the roof but doing the roof makes a massive difference to road noise and also heavily reduces very low, reverberance in the car that you get with low bass.

[Dum-Dum]

This is looking very good mate

[Niall]

Dum next time I see you it will all be done and I will take you for a drive. It's so quiet compared to standard! Well worth the money

[Dum-Dum]

LOL, Ive just bought a cabriogay as road noise dosent bother me lol

[Niall]

You could still make a big difference to that I reckon!

[Eeyore]

Job for the summer. Niall just everything you do to your car I want to do to mine! haha

Currently Ive got a problem caused by not removing my C pillars when I put the black roof lining in. There are little slots that they slot into and they only go back in if you push them down from the top but obviously i haven't unscrewed them so they wont go back in...

[Niall]

I think I know what you mean. If so, mine are fooked as well. Right PITA to get in but they do go in. It's only 2 T20 screws to remove and the boot seal and that panel comes off then you can refit it properly.

[nauest]

Looks good! The goal for my 306 is to make it a tourer, so quieter ride would be ace. SRowel, fancy doing both cars at the same time in the summer?

[MarkTD]

This is an excellent guide. I'm in the process of doing mine at the moment and your right about it being quieter!

[Niall]

Will be doing the roof hopefully tomorrow/Sunday providing my extra silent coat is delivered!

[Niall]

Right then next section - roof
Start by removing everything on the roof lining. Sun visors and clips, roof console, rear light if you have one and handles.
Now, pull the door seals back and simply pull the pillar trims away. Next the B pillar trims. Grab th height adjuster and pull hard. It will come off revealing a t10 torx. Remove this, remove the bit of plastic to reveal the seat belt bolt. Use a 17mm socket to unbolt this.
Now, remove both the door and window seals that meet it, grab the top and pull it off.
Working from the boot, remove the boot seal and the two t20 screws in each rear quarter trim. Once again, grab the top and pull it away. Remove all the door and window seals that meet the lining.

Now ideally you could do with the help of a friend here. If your like me and you have no friends, you can struggle on!
Working from the boot, gradually slide your hand between the roof skin and lining being very careful not to fold the lining. If it folds, it will leave a crease (not noticable if it's retrimmed)
Gradually work towards the front of the car splitting the glue from the lining. Once all separated, pull it out of the boot being careful not to tear it on anything.


You should have something that looks like this.
Clean it all with some meths and a clean rag and go and grab your hair dryer and silent coat

As said previously, heat the silent coat to help it stick. Apply the sheets to the roof (once the meths has properly dried). I only used 6 in total to dampen the metal.



Now, grab some cloud 9 and cut it to size. It's a pig to glue up so help is desirable and you really do need to use proper retrimming glue and not jus spay glue.
Spray the cloud 9 and the roof with a fair bit of glue and start to stick the cloud 9 up.





Do both sections but don't do over the metal bar in the middle otherwise the roof lining won't go back properly. If you wish, you could apply a bit of heat to the cloud 9 to help the glue set quicker and stop it from dropping.

Now I didn't take any photos of this bit but you will see that above the doors there are hollow bits in the body. I cut rolls of cloud 9 and stuffed them in there to try and absorb road/wind noise.

Once your sure it's all dry, refit your roof lining as it was removed. You will notice that the back of the lining is still sticky but you will still need to give it a good coating in spray glue before refitting.

[Eeyore]

ohhh update! Looks awesome! im surprised it fits after adding a layer of cloud 9 to the roof... now decisions... to strip everything out... or to keep and add sound proofing!

[Niall]

Got to do all this again now the 1.8 is gone
It's shocking how much louder all the rattles and road noise is without it all.

[Eeyore]

made a start on mine!




you can probably just about get two layers of 9mm under the popper holder downers in the boot! i havent got round to trying yet though!

[Rippthrough]

WRT weight, I once stripped a dinky little metro of dynamat that was under all the carpets, in the doors, rear quarters, boot, under bonnet, etc.

When I weighed it there was almost 80kg of the stuff!

[Niall]

Dynamat is heavy shit. You only really need it on big flat panels unless you are goi for a serious OTT SQ build.
I'd say 80% of mine was done with cloud 9 and a 15m2 roll only weighs less than 7kg

[Rippthrough]

Well, it does dry, wait until it's absorbed a bit of moisture from the air

[Just Sean]

I used a mixture of 9 and 11mm underlay in mine. Paid 35quid for a full roll of the 9mm and half a roll of 11mm.
Plus 2x tins of contact adhesive. I Put some underneath the bonnet, between the bonnet and the cover thats their already. The back of the seats (in a 5 door) have zips at the base of them, so i put some behind the seats too.

had about a quarter of 9mm left and sold it to a work colleague for £20quid!

So impressed with the results and only took a day!

[Niall]

Well, it does dry, wait until it's absorbed a bit of moisture from the air

I had it in the 1.8 for almost a year and when I ripped it all out when stripping the car, it was bone dry. It is partially water resistant.

[Rippthrough]

Structural foam ftw. Deadens sounds, damps panels, helps the handling.

Much better

[nauest]

Me and Srowel had a long but entertaining day doing both the 1.8 and my HDi estate fully with Cloud 9 yesterday. Quality guide, we did it on the cheap without the silentcoat, (maby slightly regret now!) but the cloud nine has got rid of pretty much all the high pitch road noise, the bassy stuff I can live with! No doubt Srowel will have no end of photos to add. Here is a couple of mine.

[Kwik]

good job niall

[sweeney1987]

quality job niall, how much is a full roll of that cloud 9 stuff?
and where did you get silent coat from?

[Niall]

Silent coat you can get from most audio shops like car audio direct. The cloud 9 cost £65 for a roll and me and a mate went halfs because it will easily do two cars.

[Eeyore]

Silent coat you can get from most audio shops like car audio direct. The cloud 9 cost £65 for a roll and me and a mate went halfs because it will easily do two cars.

Mine was the 9mm stuff and was £35 delivered on ebay! bargain!