Seat Box Sound Deadening

Well, for better or worse, the Seatbox is done--covered on top and underneath with sound deadening materials. The good news is, I've learned a lot on this one project. The bad news is, it didn't come out the way I wanted and I doubt I'll ever have the opportunity to do this again (maybe I should be happy about that part though!).

The material I used for the top (or interior side) was 3/8 inch "carpet matting" from Hamilton Jet (www.hamiltonjet.com). This is 1/4 inch closed cell foam backed on one side by 1/8 inch limp mass vinyl. This comes in 54" wide rolls, cut to whatever length you need.

I was concerned about the wear and tear on the top front corner and leading edge of the seatbox where it would be constantly kicked getting in and out of the 109 so I decided to reduce the number of seams to one by cutting the matting to wrap around the seatbox. Since the matting is only 54" wide, I used three peices to full cover the seatbox.

Using the top rear edge of the seatbox as the reference point, I measured and cut the matting to fit and then created a flap on door-side face that was riveted to the footwell-side face of the matting.



This is the peice for the left-hand/passenger side.



This is the peice for the middle section. I used a 1/2 inch thin metal length of tubing to cut the holes for the seat slider bolts. I also purchased new stainless steel hardware for the sliders from Tacoma Screw (www.tacomascrew.com).




Here is the box with both end caps fitted:




And with the blank, uncut middle section:

After getting each of the three sections cut and ready to mount, I brushed on a contact adhesive to both the seat box and the matting, let both sit for 20 minutes and then bonded them together. In hindsight, I would have used an assistant because once the two peices touch, it is nearly impossible to pull them apart without damaging the matting. I used a small nylon roller to roll out the bubbles and smooth out the matting.

Here is the finished product. Both access hatches will also have matting glued to them.

A close-up of the middle section:

Now for the underside. The material I used here is Powerfoam, a fire-resistant expanding foam also purchased at Tacoma Screw. The underside of the seatbox was first cleaned with mineral spirits to remove all the grease and oil, then thoroughly wire brushed to remove all the crust and scum and finally brushed and wiped down.

This foam--at least with the cans I used--came out FAST for about 20 seconds and then really slowed to a trickle until they ran dry. The foam expands a lot more than I expected it to and it seemed to expand unevenly--the foam that came out first (the fast part) seemed to expand more than the foam that came out later and very slowly.

As you can see, I overshot the edge of the seat box quite a bit. The same thing happened along the edge of the transmission access hatch. Now I'll have to cut back the foam with a hacksaw and then find a way to "re-seal" those edges.

Looks like whipped cream... But, when I tap or knock on any part of the seat box, all I hear is a dull, quiet thud.

A looooong delay

While I have been puttering around in the garage on cleaning and painting various parts, not much has been done on the frame swap itself. That project has, essentially, been at a standstill from just before Christmas through the month of January.

My fingers are crossed that February will be the month we drive it home!

Brake and Clutch Pedals/Pedal Towers

Before, as they have been for 33 years (except for the new dual circuit master cylinder):

Removed, cleaned up and ready for painting

Final product--stripped, primered, painted and ready for reinstallation, some day...

The vacuum booster had about half a can of brake fluid sloshing around inside of it. I removed the plug and let it drain over night.

New pedal pads are also installed. I am glad I did that before the pedal towers were reinstalled--those pads are hard to work with!

New Headliner for the Roof

The headliner was in very good shape considering its age. There was only one small tear in the rearmost panel, about 1 inch in length. But a big part of this re-framing project was to minimize noise as much as possible. I had read last year a post by MercedesRover on the Guns & Rovers forum about how he replaced his headliner with closed cell foam and felt so I decided to do the same thing.

The first step was to remove the original headliner and clean all the black tarlike glue Solihull used to stick it in place back in 1977. When I removed the actual headliner, I learned it was not in nearly as good shape as it appeared--most of the metal framing along the drip rail had rusted and the fabric in those areas had disintegrated (nevertheless, I was able to find a buyer for the old headliner "as is" for $40). I had to drill out the rivets in the roof vent surrounds to remove the center panel. The black tar glue came off pretty easily with a wire brush on a drill but there were some thicker bits that took a little more work and provided justification to buy one of those vibrating scraper tools from Harbor Freight. The tool is loud as hell but it did get the job done.

Then it was time to cut the closed cell foam. A tip on work like this--measure and re-measure alot. Then make one cut and test fit. Then repeat until done. Hear are the three panels ready to be glued in place.

My wife (the 109's owner) thankfully removed one level of complexity from the project by deciding that the new headliner could just follow the lines of the original liner. This meant I did not have to deal with cutting and fitting the materials around the alpine windows. As for the roof vents, I cut the closed cell foam so that the surrounds are countersunk into the foam and, when riveted back in place, will pinch the hull liner material between them and the roof.

PerfectFit, the shop where I bought the foam and hull liner, recommended that I use this Wilsonart contact adhesive, which can be purchased at any Home Depot or Lowes. It is, they told me, the same adhesive used in the 3M spraycans but you get a full gallon for the same price as one spraycan. Since I was using on the headliner as well as the sound dampening materials for the seatbox, footwells and floors, I bought the gallon and a lot of brushes from Harbor Freight.

Some lessons I learned about painting on the adhesive: if you wait the full 20 minutes to adhere the two parts together, you had better get the positioning right the first try. A small foam roller works best to spread the adhesive on the bare aluminum roof and on the foam. It does not work so well speading the adhesive on the hull liner--neither does a brush for that matter. In hindsight, I would have used spraycan adhesive on the hull liner for a more even, easily applied coating. Another lesson I learned is that both the foam and the hull liner material stretches when you glue them in place so wait until they are glued down before cutting out the vent holes. I also cut holes in the foam around the sunsheet bolts (before gluing) to avoid having big lumps in the finished product--if you do this, cut the bolt holes after gluing. Wirecutters work better at cutting the hull liner than scissors or a razor knife.

Heeding MercedesRover's advice, I ran the dome light wire first! I also ran a power a separate set of power and ground wires through the rib between the front and middle roof panels "just because." I don't know if I will ever use them, but I did not want to regret not taking the opportunity to run them when I had the chance. This extra set of wires are tucked under the dome light mount and in the drip rail.

Here is the finished product. As MercedesRover said, all-in-all, an easy project. Mine stretched out over about 5 months because the frame swap project as a whole was taking soooo long, I did not feel the need to work faster. If you have the desire, drive, focus to get this done quickly, I think you could easily do it all in one day (assuming the roof is off your truck and you have all the materials ready).

I am also nearly done wth modifying the dome light to run a total of 12 white LEDs. There will be a separate post on LED lighting.

Seat Box & Tool Locker

Our seatbox and tool locker

The Sonoma tool locker:

The original plan:

Strip all parts off seat box.

clean, prime and paint seat frames

clean underside of seat box

apply Powerfoam for sound deadening underneath

apply closed cell foam & limp mass vinyl for additional sound deadening on top

The detour in the plan:

The new chassis does not have a battery tray in the engine compartment so we will mount the battery in the tool locker under the passenger seat. The problem is, the battery tray in our seat box does not have the battery tray in it. However, the Sonoma 109 seat box does. After seeing that the underside of the Sonoma seat box had been sprayed with some sort of tarlike undercoating, I decided to just swap the tool locker. In about 30 minutes the rivets holding both tool lockers to their seat boxes were drilled out. In addition to the undercoating, the Sonoma tool locker was also pretty rusty inside. After about 90 minutes, I had removed all of the undercoating and all of the loose rust from the interior and it was ready for primer and paint. Then it will be riveted back into our original seat box and the plan will be back on track.

Here is the pile of crud that came off the seat box and tool locker:

This is the tool locker after it had been wire-brushed, primered and with the beginning coat of paint:

Here is the final product ready for reinstallation:

Uh Oh. More Rust Damage

Turns out there was more damage on the bulkhead than I thought. This is the left hand side "hip" of the bulkhead. Perforations in several spots. We are trying to find the 25" A-Pillar repair peice. So far, we've only found the 18" peice.




One rust hole about the size of a matchhead on the bottom of the core support.

Also, it looks like American Metal spread the sheet metal apart along the bottom edge of the core support to get better penetration in the three step dipping process. The support has a curve to it now that will have to be corrected.

Parts back from chemical strip

New T-Posts

We were very fortunate on the bulkhead. What you see is the extent of the rust damage--confined to the lower part of the footwells and the bottom of the A pillar.

Core Support

Bulkhead. You can see part of one side step near the bottom of the picture.

It took a full month to get these parts back from American Metal Cleaning. The next step is to weld in the new footwell repair panels (RNF0002 and RNF0003 from Rovers North) and repair the lower A pillar on the driver's side. After that, all of these parts head to the galvanizer!