After work I plan on tearing out my interior to clean the carpets and lay down some sound deadening material.

I've done some research and found a few helpful links from other people who have taken on the task.

I was wondering if anyone on here has done the same and has any tips or tricks that they could pass on that they learned while doing.

I'm also hoping to do the front grill replacement, but that might be pushing my luck with all the other work I'm doing.

 

Not that bad to do. I did it couple years ago. remove the seats, console and plastic thresholds by the doors and the carpet comes out. A buddy gave me a couple rollers to from the sound deadening material to the contours of the floor.

 

It is a fairly straight forward task. Not sure how you plan to clean the carpets, a pressure washer and some sort of detergant works wonders on even the nastiest carpets. Just be sure to let the carpet backing dry completely or your interior will be like a rain forrest for awhile. Pull your seat belts out and pressure wash the straps on those as they get surprisingly dirty. Now is also a good time to scrub clean all the trim piece that you pulled to get the carpet out.

 

Would you say this is a good one day project (beyond the carpet drying), or should someone plan the project over many days?

I am thinking of doing this once my foot is healed and before I put in the new center consoles I am working on.

So the question is, is this a good weekend project, or will it need more time?

Thanks!

 

I did mine over a weekend. We pulled all of the seats, carpet, and some of the plastic pieces out.
For the carpet I sprayed Krud Kutter all over it until it was saturated and then used a brush to work it in. When I was done with that I just used a garden hose to rinse it off and then hung it from the ceiling in the garage. To help with drying I pointed a couple of pedestal fans at it and it was dry by morning.
For the seats and plastic I used scrubbing bubbles with a soft bristle brush. Then used a leather conditioner.
Overall it took a couple of days.

 

The actual interior removal and reinstall is the quickest part really. Carpet drying is going to be determined by the weather and will take the most time of the project. Mine took 24 hours to dry but we were having a heat wave and it was over 100* that weekend. I used Dynomat and installed it to the back seats, maybe an hour or 2 job to apply. It's pretty basic.

Using power tools I could likely swap in a new carpet in about 2 hours.

If you need to drive it while the carpet is drying just throw the front seat back in.

 

Basically what Pirate said. Nothing to add after that other than wait until the weather is good for the carpet to dry out like he said.

 

To OP:

Please take before and after dB readings for empirical data.

Thanks.

 

Work slow when pulling plastic in case the clips have gotten brittle with age.

 

Update:

Got the interior pulled and pressure washed last night.

pre soaked it with water and all powder detergent while i had to run to home depot to get a new hose.

spent about an hour and a half pressure washing the carpets.

dirty as hell!

the only thing i would definitely recommend is getting 4-6 solid horses that you can hang your carpets from.

i washed the main carpet flat on the ground but that became really heavy to move once soaked with water.

if you have the space, drape them over the horses and wash them that way, it'll save time in having to move them and help with water drainage.

Now onto the fun part, laying the sound deadener material.


One quick question, does anyone know of a video or instructions on how to swap out the front grill?

 

Wow, this cleaning is taking it to a hole nutha level...

 

Don't forget to do the sides. I did the roof too but didn't take a pic.

 

^^^^^ this, you have come this far don't skip the wheel wells. An amazing amount of road noise comes in through the wheel wells.

The material under the carpet and on the back of those panels is for sound absorption , it is very similar to what is inside a quilted moving blanket or you can buy the material on rolls. Home Depot even sells it as a moving blanket ( both quilted and raw. ) Cover the sides and wheel wells in your deadner and then a layer of absorption and it will make one of the largest differences of the whole project. The 2 main areas you want to improve on are the front firewall and foot wells and the rear wheel wells

 

I did everything I could reach, just couldn't find a picture of the finished product quickly. The only part of the truck that I did not get was behind the dash.

 

So far i got about 2 hours into just cleaning the floor and sides

going to start laying the gt mat now, hopefully that goes pretty smoothly

about to crack open the vodka to help keep me motivated