Make It Quieter?

[ChaChaCha]

Dear Dodge Pickup Owners:

Being in the cab of my recently-acquired 1973 Dodge D200 pickup is a somewhat noisy.

I am considering lining many of the flat surfaces (gas tank, floor panels, floor under the seat, ceiling) with sound absorbing material.

Do you think it is possible to reduce the cab noise in this manner? If so, what material would you recommend?

Thanks

[B-300]

There are many things to choose from. The simplest is carpet (I have this on the floor of my van and it makes a difference). Go up in price and you will find stick back pads made for firewall and under carpet that alsokeep heat out (or in when cold).
I would clean, prime and paint all surfaces to be covered to prevent rust.

[GHS]

I covered everything with a less expensive version of Dyna-mat. Then I put an additional layer of carpet padding under the stock carpet. I also installed the headliner from a later model truck and carpeted the lower door panels and behind the seats. Cloth seats and door panels also helped with noise.

It's not quite as quiet as a new truck, but it's darn close.

Some pictures:
http://dodgetruckworld.tenmagazines.com/ew/mygallery.asp?id=5853

[volaredon]

In my current truck I have the rubber mat and padding currently out (was wet and wanted to dry it out and coat my cab floor with "truck bed" coating before putting it back in.
but when I had my 78 D 300 dually I had to repair the driver's floorpan, where it made the step up from the floorpan to the stepped up surface that the seat bolts to,
since I didnt have a shear and a brake I had to piece in (7 smaller pcs) and MIG weld the hole in the floor. The pass side had FEW pinholes. So I bead blasted the inside of the floorpan and hand laid about 3 layers of fiberglass resin and cloth onto the whole floorpan from where it met the firewall to where it made that "step-up"; I could not believe how much difference that made in quietness inside the cab! and resin dripped thru all the pinholes and in the seams between my welds and sealed it off!

[86_custom]

To me all that noise is part of the "charm" of an old truck. Unless it starts to feel junky with windows whistling and so on

[Speed Dragon]

The Dynamat-type stuff works good, there are quite a few brands out there now, and they all work about as good. So find the deal on whichever brand. Dynamat, Roadkill, and Brown Stuff are a few of the most common.

The worst noise areas are the back wall and the roof, w/ the door being next and then the floor and the firewall. I would get some that also insulates heat for the floorboards and firewall. Dodges tend to pump a lot of heat into the cab from these areas :)

[ChaChaCha]

Thanks for your helpful replies.

ChaChaCha

[volaredon]

I gotta make mine a lil quieter-- in a different way and for a different reason.

On my 78 Fury (ALL Stock incl still running Lean Burn) I had true duals run off the manifolds; I used Thrush's version of "flowmasters"--fully welded shell
on my 83 D 250 (also 318 but 4 BBL Magnum heads stock 360-2bbl cam, and a set of Hookers, also with true duals) but traditional "turbos"

For whatever reason, I told the muffler guy not to go with the same mufflers on the truck as he did on the Fury; now I am wishing I had done so. The fury has a nice mellow rumble real quiet at cruise; the truck is louder all around and has that "Honduh fart can" rattle to it under power; the truck dont sound bad except when it does that "fart can" thing. Both are 2-1/4" pipe all the way to the bumper.

On the truck, I alredy spent the $$ for the current mufflers so I dont wanna really "throw em away"; and I am not talking a drastic cut in noise level; I just wanna "take the edge off" so to speak.
I remember back in my days working at Sears hanging exhaust (we would not do any custom work; 100% OEM level replacement, all with pre-bent pipe); boy we ate up alot of warehouse space with all those pipes we stocked! but what we would occasionally do would be to use an old school glasspack in place of the rear muffler (resonator) if we were out of the "right" one. I think they quieted them down better than an OE replacement style resonator. I may buy a pair of cheap "shorty" glass packs and add em in towards the way back. Originally I wanted the "long" glass packs instead of the turbos since I love the sound they make, especially when new before the glass gets burned out!

But now that my insurance (w/o full coverage BTW) has tripled; just on account of having to add my 16 yo, freshly licensed son to the insurance (I expected it to double; but Damn!) He dont need any "extra" attention in that truck;
ol'Dad (me) has had plenty of "cop trouble" lately; and that gets damn expensive! (that courthouse is greedy, and they refused me when I tried for comm. service this last time because they were dead set on "CASH") so I need to do what I can to keep them from paying attention to him; or I might have to go Postal or something; my ol lady got her 2nd ticket, EVER (1st since her days of being pregnant) for a stupid arsed equip thing that is gonna cost me ANOTHER $75 that I do not have; and I went off the deep end; (and none of it was directed at HER) they mess with the kid and I can (definitely not proudly) guarantee, that i will need to make a few calls for bail.

But yeah, I do plan on coating the inside of the cab with the gallon of Duplicolor truck bed coating that I have here, and putting the rubber mat and jute padding back in before this winter so that my radio sounds better! (and to slow the rusting process down as much as possible too, while I am at it; I am hoping that this truck will last long enough to wear out its present engine and still be in good enough shape to justify a new one down the road)

[Speed Dragon]

I would put the glasspacks in front of the current mufflers as resonators (like the factory does these days).

[volaredon]

Ah; I know what you mean; so i'd have to take the current ones out and put the 'packs there and put the current mufflers back in the tailpipes somewhere. There are a couple swap meets left this season and theres almost always this sort of thing avail. there, theres always the flea markets! (have to be cheap about things these days)

[Speed Dragon]

Yeah. Also, I've been told that having the mufflers further back increases torque a bit.