Thor Forums

[terencgb1]

Two projects completed this weekend. Both were sound deadening projects as the noise in the cab was way too much for comfort In the DB meter it was registering 82 on some parts of I5 and they say prolonged exposure over 85 can cause hearing loss. Not to mention divorce! First up was to put KilMat in the dog house. This was messy as clearly somebody before me had tried a home brew method of cheap insulation and what appeared to be liquid nails. After scraping off all the old stuff, two bottles of 'googon" and a lot of w40 (yes its a great glue remover), I had a clean dog house and then applied two layers of KilMat. All the joints were layered and the edges sealed with aluminum tape. Next up was a much bigger project inspired by Stan Fowler. Stan I salute you. You may have saved my marriage or at least my RV future. Following posts from Stan I began looking at the dash and the top of the engine. Early inspection showed the same problem Stan highlighted that the plywood deck over the engine bad had separated from the cap front and wind and engine noise was basically just blowing straight through. Out cam the dash, our came the ventilation system and I went to work getting the front end sealed up. With the exception of about 12 inches the entire deck had separated from the front cap so some carful pushing and shoving and wedging from underneath let me get the gap closed and re-attatched with added screws and liquid nails. Its important to note that for what ever reason the corner A pillar is not closed at the bottom. Im not sure why that is but road noise and wind can blow straight up that 'A' pillar cowl. I closed mine so we will see what the effect is. I got a roll of mass loaded Vinyl from Amazon and laid that in taping up all the cracks i could find. As Stan says, removing the dash is not as hard as you might think if you take your time and I would like to think that it is put back with more care and alignment than Thor used. So after two solid days of work, a couple of skinned knuckles and some sore knees I am pleased to report the whole project was a huge success. The bus is quiet! test driving at 65 on the same stretch of I5 yielded a 72 max decibel reading which is a huge I improvement. If anybody is getting cab noise they don't want I highly recommend this project. difficulty is about a 5 out of 10 if you can use a screwdriver, a utility knife and can spend some time on your knees. If you want to try it and have questions I am happy to help. I have three more noise projects to complete and will report more. Thanks Stan!