Hushmat install
04-10-2010, 07:04 AM
#1
5th Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Colorado
Posts: 2,652
Hushmat install
I didnt take a lot of pictures, so please dont bother asking me to post them as they dont exist in a manner I believe to be significant enough to justify posting them. This week I decided to install Hushmat in my 06. I did both doors and the full interior floor and sides (wheel wells, etc...) as well as a good portion of the trunk.
My overall evaluation is I would rate the product as 3.5 out of 5. There is a reduction in cabin noise from the aftermarket exhaust, road noise, etc... and the stereo doesnt have to be turned up as loud, but not what I would call a significant amount. My estimate is perhaps 15%.
On a difficulty level I would rate it as a medium and it is labor intensive. For the claims that Hushmat is easier to work with, can be done without the aid of gloves, and adheres with little or no surface prep, I would agree with those claims 100%. I dont believe I used my gloves at all during the actual installation process.
As far as the process goes, I utilized minimal handtools and would say the only specialty tool utilized was the trim removal fork that I bought at PepBoys and an ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT IS A TORX T50. Dont start the interior floor without the TORX. Rest of the tools were common hand tools.
Tips are as follows:
Overall : Work from top to bottom during removal process and bottom to top during reinstall as a general rule. If whatever you are trying to do isnt working, don't force it. Trim is delicate and you can easily damage it, so take your time and use tools with minimal force. Most trim can be done by hand and is pulled at a 90 away from the surface it is being removed from.
Doors: Removal of the panel can easily be found on this forum that gives good guidelines so I will post potential gotchas. 1- The door install kit does not have enough to cover both doors adequately. I would recommend 2 door kits to effectively cover the doors. This would include covering the door skin that is reachable through the holes. 2- Interior panel removal is fairly easy. Be aware that you will need a small torx (dont know size) but if you want to know for sure prior to disassembly, remove the small panel behind the interior door handle and that is the size you need. You will also want to have a set of needlenose to remove the cable for the door handle as it attaches to the panel. Look closely and you will see that the end of the housing needs pinched and then it is fed away from the handle through the housing. 3- I have the Shaker 500. The sub comes out with the door panel. The screws that attach the the speaker itself to the door has 3 screws. These are a different size then the ones attaching the door panel. You can easily mistake them for the others, but they are not the same size. 4 - I reused the clear plastic factory water shield, so I would advise caution and not wantonly destroy it during removal. 5- When removing the area where the power windows switches are, I pulled the top part and the housing it attaches to directly out as a unit. Instructions said to pull the top off then the housing, but I found it too easy to damage the top and pulling straight out was simple and effective. Reassembly presented no real challenges other than making sure all the power and control cabling was in place and making sure nothing was pinched.
OVERALL : Doors were actually pretty easy to do but time consuming. I took about 2.5 hours per door. Your mileage will vary. I invested more time because the surfaces were more complex to work with and making sure all of the little holes that were needed for reassembly were appropriately clear of hushmat. If I had to do it again, I would probably make paper templates. I did these as separate jobs from everything else to minimize possibility of mixing parts up with other door as well as interior.
Seats - Both front seats utilize only 4 bolts. HOWEVER DO NOT RIP THEM OUT. BOTH seats have electrical connections underneath whether it is a power seat or not. Once the bolts are removed, angle the seat forward and detach the power connectors. Removal was simple afterwards. A power seat weighs probably 15-20 lbs more than non powered, so be prepared to handle the weight. I screwed the bolts and nuts back into the mounting location after the seat removal to prevent losing them and make sure that during the install the mountings were not covered with material. The back seat were extremely easy to remove. They are very very lightweight. Reinstalled the bolt for the top half on both sides to make sure mounting was not covered with hushmat as well. Reinstall was easy on both counts.
Center console (cup holder and small compartment). Hardest part here was the e-brake and seemingly not enough angle to get the cover off. If you look on the back of the ebrake from the top while trying to remove, you will see the cable coming through and attached to it is a threaded bolt and nut. I found finally that loosening that nut significantly took tension off the cable and allow freedom of movement on the ebrake handle. Once that was done, the angles were appropriate and speedy uninstall was the name of the game. Make sure you unplug the 12v for the little compartment. Theres a small electrical sensor on the bottom of the ebrake. I found it easier to unbolt that sensor rather then trying to reach the power connection to loosen. It was required to remove the carpet. Reassembly, make sure you connect the little ebrake switch, route the cabling before mounting it, and that you will be able to tighten the small nut on the ebrake if needed because the angle was too shallow for removal.
Seat belts - easily one of the most pain in the blank parts of this. Trust me - have a TORX T50. Dont even consider doing the project without it. I managed to get the drivers side off with a pair of vice grips. Cool. I just saved 5 bucks. WRONG. The passenger side housing looked different...hmmm....there's some type of electrical connection that runs through that area and is a sensor on the passenger side. Probably airbag related, but nonetheless, there is absolutely no way without damaging or destroying the housing that the TORX bolt is coming out without a torx T50. JUST BUY THE T50. This sensor cable runs through the backside of the rear side trim panels.
The rest of the project was trim and carpet.
I left the kick panels in the front in place with little problems from them. Removed the door sill panels (maybe have some fresh doublestick if needed, but reusing mine they seemed fine.) Removed the large trim pieces in the backseat on the sides over the wheel wells. Those pieces on the backside near the trunk I pulled laterally as they wrapped around a little bit on the backside, then pulled the whole piece towards the front of the vehicle for removal. Reattaching those was a bit of a pain and I would highly recommend gloves here as I pinched my fingers a couple of times pretty good. Behind those panels is a little insulation, pop that off as well.
I had to cut the carpet to get it out. During the assembly process at the factory they must install the carpet prior to the dashboard. The carpet runs across the tranny tunnel underneath the dash in two places and it is completely run across as 2 whole pieces. Break out the razor and cut it as you have no real options here short of removing the entire dash. Otherwise, it was just a dusty removal and reinstall.
It goes without saying move around carefully now inside the car. Dont break electical connections. I was especially concerned about the power connectors for the seats as they are right in the middle of the floor now as well as the connections for the fuel pumps. There arent a lot of places you have to worry about getting cut by sheetmetal. Few bumps and bruises, but thats okay. Have a lot of workspace, stay hydrated and take your time.
I used the bulkpack which had 57 sq ft entirely and did the whole interior floor and walls with 4 sheets for the trunk area. The trunk will definitely take more than 4 sheets, so plan accordingly.
The interior took 7 hours from start to finish for a total project time of 11-13 hours. I do believe that having someone help on this project would have significantly cut down on the time required. I am guessing on the order of 75%. Make sure you trust them though and that perhaps they have some vested interest. It could be easy to damage something expensive and towards the end you get tired so easy to try to take shortcuts.
If I had my wishlist, I would ask for more room in my garage to have done this as I ended up in the driveway in the heat of the day. I only have about 1.5 available in a 2 car garage spacewise.
So take your time, crank up some tunes and get to work. Would I do it again? I have to admit that any gain I had was worth some effort. Right now my fingers are pretty darn sore and so is the rest of me. Ask me in a week and I will probably say yes, but right now I am saying I'm too sore to say anything other than heck no.
My overall evaluation is I would rate the product as 3.5 out of 5. There is a reduction in cabin noise from the aftermarket exhaust, road noise, etc... and the stereo doesnt have to be turned up as loud, but not what I would call a significant amount. My estimate is perhaps 15%.
On a difficulty level I would rate it as a medium and it is labor intensive. For the claims that Hushmat is easier to work with, can be done without the aid of gloves, and adheres with little or no surface prep, I would agree with those claims 100%. I dont believe I used my gloves at all during the actual installation process.
As far as the process goes, I utilized minimal handtools and would say the only specialty tool utilized was the trim removal fork that I bought at PepBoys and an ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT IS A TORX T50. Dont start the interior floor without the TORX. Rest of the tools were common hand tools.
Tips are as follows:
Overall : Work from top to bottom during removal process and bottom to top during reinstall as a general rule. If whatever you are trying to do isnt working, don't force it. Trim is delicate and you can easily damage it, so take your time and use tools with minimal force. Most trim can be done by hand and is pulled at a 90 away from the surface it is being removed from.
Doors: Removal of the panel can easily be found on this forum that gives good guidelines so I will post potential gotchas. 1- The door install kit does not have enough to cover both doors adequately. I would recommend 2 door kits to effectively cover the doors. This would include covering the door skin that is reachable through the holes. 2- Interior panel removal is fairly easy. Be aware that you will need a small torx (dont know size) but if you want to know for sure prior to disassembly, remove the small panel behind the interior door handle and that is the size you need. You will also want to have a set of needlenose to remove the cable for the door handle as it attaches to the panel. Look closely and you will see that the end of the housing needs pinched and then it is fed away from the handle through the housing. 3- I have the Shaker 500. The sub comes out with the door panel. The screws that attach the the speaker itself to the door has 3 screws. These are a different size then the ones attaching the door panel. You can easily mistake them for the others, but they are not the same size. 4 - I reused the clear plastic factory water shield, so I would advise caution and not wantonly destroy it during removal. 5- When removing the area where the power windows switches are, I pulled the top part and the housing it attaches to directly out as a unit. Instructions said to pull the top off then the housing, but I found it too easy to damage the top and pulling straight out was simple and effective. Reassembly presented no real challenges other than making sure all the power and control cabling was in place and making sure nothing was pinched.
OVERALL : Doors were actually pretty easy to do but time consuming. I took about 2.5 hours per door. Your mileage will vary. I invested more time because the surfaces were more complex to work with and making sure all of the little holes that were needed for reassembly were appropriately clear of hushmat. If I had to do it again, I would probably make paper templates. I did these as separate jobs from everything else to minimize possibility of mixing parts up with other door as well as interior.
Seats - Both front seats utilize only 4 bolts. HOWEVER DO NOT RIP THEM OUT. BOTH seats have electrical connections underneath whether it is a power seat or not. Once the bolts are removed, angle the seat forward and detach the power connectors. Removal was simple afterwards. A power seat weighs probably 15-20 lbs more than non powered, so be prepared to handle the weight. I screwed the bolts and nuts back into the mounting location after the seat removal to prevent losing them and make sure that during the install the mountings were not covered with material. The back seat were extremely easy to remove. They are very very lightweight. Reinstalled the bolt for the top half on both sides to make sure mounting was not covered with hushmat as well. Reinstall was easy on both counts.
Center console (cup holder and small compartment). Hardest part here was the e-brake and seemingly not enough angle to get the cover off. If you look on the back of the ebrake from the top while trying to remove, you will see the cable coming through and attached to it is a threaded bolt and nut. I found finally that loosening that nut significantly took tension off the cable and allow freedom of movement on the ebrake handle. Once that was done, the angles were appropriate and speedy uninstall was the name of the game. Make sure you unplug the 12v for the little compartment. Theres a small electrical sensor on the bottom of the ebrake. I found it easier to unbolt that sensor rather then trying to reach the power connection to loosen. It was required to remove the carpet. Reassembly, make sure you connect the little ebrake switch, route the cabling before mounting it, and that you will be able to tighten the small nut on the ebrake if needed because the angle was too shallow for removal.
Seat belts - easily one of the most pain in the blank parts of this. Trust me - have a TORX T50. Dont even consider doing the project without it. I managed to get the drivers side off with a pair of vice grips. Cool. I just saved 5 bucks. WRONG. The passenger side housing looked different...hmmm....there's some type of electrical connection that runs through that area and is a sensor on the passenger side. Probably airbag related, but nonetheless, there is absolutely no way without damaging or destroying the housing that the TORX bolt is coming out without a torx T50. JUST BUY THE T50. This sensor cable runs through the backside of the rear side trim panels.
The rest of the project was trim and carpet.
I left the kick panels in the front in place with little problems from them. Removed the door sill panels (maybe have some fresh doublestick if needed, but reusing mine they seemed fine.) Removed the large trim pieces in the backseat on the sides over the wheel wells. Those pieces on the backside near the trunk I pulled laterally as they wrapped around a little bit on the backside, then pulled the whole piece towards the front of the vehicle for removal. Reattaching those was a bit of a pain and I would highly recommend gloves here as I pinched my fingers a couple of times pretty good. Behind those panels is a little insulation, pop that off as well.
I had to cut the carpet to get it out. During the assembly process at the factory they must install the carpet prior to the dashboard. The carpet runs across the tranny tunnel underneath the dash in two places and it is completely run across as 2 whole pieces. Break out the razor and cut it as you have no real options here short of removing the entire dash. Otherwise, it was just a dusty removal and reinstall.
It goes without saying move around carefully now inside the car. Dont break electical connections. I was especially concerned about the power connectors for the seats as they are right in the middle of the floor now as well as the connections for the fuel pumps. There arent a lot of places you have to worry about getting cut by sheetmetal. Few bumps and bruises, but thats okay. Have a lot of workspace, stay hydrated and take your time.
I used the bulkpack which had 57 sq ft entirely and did the whole interior floor and walls with 4 sheets for the trunk area. The trunk will definitely take more than 4 sheets, so plan accordingly.
The interior took 7 hours from start to finish for a total project time of 11-13 hours. I do believe that having someone help on this project would have significantly cut down on the time required. I am guessing on the order of 75%. Make sure you trust them though and that perhaps they have some vested interest. It could be easy to damage something expensive and towards the end you get tired so easy to try to take shortcuts.
If I had my wishlist, I would ask for more room in my garage to have done this as I ended up in the driveway in the heat of the day. I only have about 1.5 available in a 2 car garage spacewise.
So take your time, crank up some tunes and get to work. Would I do it again? I have to admit that any gain I had was worth some effort. Right now my fingers are pretty darn sore and so is the rest of me. Ask me in a week and I will probably say yes, but right now I am saying I'm too sore to say anything other than heck no.
04-10-2010, 10:53 AM
#3
3rd Gear Member
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Michigan
Posts: 527
Yes good writeup! I got 100 sqr ft of Fatmat for Christmas and I'm just waiting for school to get done to install it. I want to also Fatmat the roof. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this (I know how to remove the headliner) I just wanted to know if this would be a bad idea ie. the rood sagging or the headliner not fitting. I know tons of wind and road noise comes from there and it would be a vast improvement to reduce it.
04-10-2010, 07:35 PM
#4
5th Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Colorado
Posts: 2,652
Yes good writeup! I got 100 sqr ft of Fatmat for Christmas and I'm just waiting for school to get done to install it. I want to also Fatmat the roof. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this (I know how to remove the headliner) I just wanted to know if this would be a bad idea ie. the rood sagging or the headliner not fitting. I know tons of wind and road noise comes from there and it would be a vast improvement to reduce it.
04-11-2010, 07:58 AM
#5
3rd Gear Member
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Michigan
Posts: 527
Based on my experience with the rest of the car, I dont think that is a bad idea. I did not have any problems with any reinstallation where I thought the material would interfere with the factory equipment. In this case, I'd definitely say go for it. Please report back if you think you had a significant gain with doing the roof. That is the one place I did not do.
04-11-2010, 11:46 AM
#6
6th Gear Member
Join Date: May 2005
Location: MD/WV
Posts: 5,736
Yes good writeup! I got 100 sqr ft of Fatmat for Christmas and I'm just waiting for school to get done to install it. I want to also Fatmat the roof. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this (I know how to remove the headliner) I just wanted to know if this would be a bad idea ie. the rood sagging or the headliner not fitting. I know tons of wind and road noise comes from there and it would be a vast improvement to reduce it.
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