1954 Chevy Pickup | Interior Insulation

June 20th, 2004 : Interior Insulation - Phase One

Today was one of those perfect Summer days ... 75-degrees and 30% humidity ... so I got up early and decided to play with the truck and enjoy the weather. The area behind my bench-seat still had all the old stuff back there. There was an ugly gold-colored rug, hanging from just below the rear window, down to the floor and it had seen it's days ... dust and debris was falling out of it whenever I banged on it ... so I removed it completely and threw it in the trash. Underneath that, I found some pieces of insulation glued to the body of the truck, but only in pieces -- hardly covering more than 50% of the area ... so I found myself entering a new project: Insulating the entire rear area of the cab.

I had already done this when I rewired the truck, last year -- gluing a layer of cotton-fiber jute on the floor -- from the back of the seat, all the way up under the firewall:

Here's a shot showing the underside of the dash and upper-cowl area of the interior:

Jute - Under the Dash

I like this cotton fiber stuff. I bought enough to do what you see above from Home Depot for only $11.00 ... about 5.3 square yards worth. This is just a preliminary stage of insulating the interior, in the interest of sealing everything up; closing off any old holes in the floor, etc. Later, after finding the powered seats I want to install, I'm going to put another layer of insulation on top of this (that'll be "Phase Two"), using the foil-backed stuff Home Depot sells for water heaters (foil-side down; towards the outside), followed by the carpet and interior panels.

So I went to Home Depot again and bought another can of 3M Super 77 Adhesive Spray and another $11.00-worth of jute ... what they sell comes 4-feet wide; I bought an 8-foot length and used about two thirds of that, and nearly the entire can of adhesive, doing what you see below.

The first thing I did was to cut all the pieces of jute to fit each and every place I was going to cover. Once that was done and I knew the pieces of jute were sized right, I marked them and set them aside -- there were seventeen separate pieces. Next, I sprayed the entire area of the cab with adhesive, including the sides of the door jams, floor area and the structural rail on the floor, just behind the seat. Then I sprayed the backsides of the jute and once they were dry, began installing them -- here's the finished result:

Jute - Behind the Seat

Here's a close-up of the structural floor-rail ... I'm thinking of putting a hinged lid over this and using the space to store hand tools, etc.

Jute - structural Floor Rail

And, finally, here's a shot of the wrap detail I employed to cover the door-jam side of the interior:

Jute - structural Floor Rail

This was a great way to spend a day outside under the sun ... and now the entire interior of my truck is sealed up and insulated, ready for Phase Two.

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