Now its time for the last of the sound deadening and an upgrade to the sound system, so in order to sound deaden the cab floor, we had to remove most of the trim.
Firstly we had to remove the passenger seats, the swivel seat base (again) the leisure battery, and the drivers seat.
To make removal of the floor mat easier, we removed all the lower trim from the dashboard and then removed the floor mat.
This is what we were left with, we decided to use Silentcoat for the cab floor, rather than Dynomat, as it came in just about the right pack size, and the sheets were smaller.
After a couple of hours trimming and rolling, we ended up with this.
Then it was onto the doors, we had been putting this off for a while, as we were worried about damaging the side windows, but we could not put it off any longer. Removing the door trims is straightforward, first prise off the trim on the grab handle, a plastic card is great for this.
This will reveal two torx screws.
Remove these two, the one in the centre and the three along the bottom, then using a trim removal tool, the door trim can be released from the door.
Then disconnect the wiring to the electric windows and mirrors, and the door opening handle and lift it off over the locking indicator.
This will expose the inner metal panel.
There are two large rubber grommets in the door, you need to remove these and connect the electric window switches back up, and then inch the windows down, until you can see the window retaining bolts through these holes.
Now you need to secure the window glass, masking tape is the preferred option, although we probably went a bit overboard, with this.
Now you can undo the two bolts that hold the glass in, do not completely remove these as they are no fun to put back in through the holes.
Then we undid all the bolts around the outside, and pulled the metal panel down and away, it didn’t move far enough from the door, to allow access so we released the clips that hold the wiring loom to the panel and this gave enough room to get behind. My glamorous assistant, was there to hold the panel while I applied the sound deadening.
Then just as before, it was a case of degreasing the inside of the door and then applying some sound deadening and rolling it on, as you do not want anything getting tangled up with the window mechanism.
This was then bolted back on, and the window clamped firmly back in the window regulator.
We then disconnected the speaker wire and drilled out the rivets that were holding it on, the speaker mounts were also replaced, with some Mk IV gold ones.
These were riveted back on with a bead of tiger seal added to minimise vibration, a hole was then drilled in the side of the mount to allow the wire to pass through and the new pioneer speaker was fitted using the fixings provided.
To ensure a good sound, some more sound deadening was fitted to the inner metal panel.
Then, the door trim was replaced and it was onto the other side, however my glamorous assistant had gone out, so she was replaced with masking tape.
Once both doors were done it was onto the tweeters, these are hidden under grills in the corners of the dashboard, again the covers are just prised off using a plastic card.
The tweeters are held in place with torx screws, they are not easy to get to as they are so close to the windscreen, but once undone undo the connector and remove the tweeter.
Once removed, careful use of a sharp knife, removed the original tweeter, then very careful use of a step-drill enlarged the hole to the right size to take the new one.
The new tweeters were bonded in place using more tiger seal, and then the leads were shortened and soldered including the filters that were supplied with them, and then the original plugs soldered back on, taking note of the polarity.
These were then fitted back in, and the the covers replaced,
Then on to the head unit, I purchased a Pioneer AVIC-F88-DAB, from Absolut5, they supplied me with a custom harness to ensure easy fitment and while the head unit was out, I installed a new lead from Travelvolts that allowed me to run the unit from both the leisure battery and the ignition live.
Removing the old head unit is easy enough, again use of a plastic card around the back of the tray on top of the dashboard will allow you to pull it free.
This will reveal two torx screws, that hold the fascia in place, remove these.
Then slide the same plastic card down the sides of the fascia and this will release the clips.
The fascia can then be pulled loose, disconnect any cables to the switches and then place it somewhere safe. The old head unit can then be unscrewed unplugged and removed.
As my old unit was not DAB, I had to install a DAB aerial, which goes halfway up the window on the passenger side, right next to the A pillar trim. The new head unit integrates with the standard parking sensors, but will not work with the standard bluetooth microphone, so a new one has to be used, this is currently strung across the sun shades, as I have yet to integrate this into the headlining.
As the unit has built in GPS an aerial was installed for this, Absolut5 suggested I put this under the top tray, as the only condition is there is nothing metal between it and the sky, the aerial comes with a self adhesive pad.
The new wiring loom was connected and everything put back in reverse order.
There is an audible difference in the road noise within the cab when driving, the doors sound more solid when they are shut and people have commented to me when I have been on the phone with them (handsfree) that it is a lot less noisy. The output from the stereo is of a much higher quality, it supports Apple Car play and Android devices, DVD’s can also be played but only while stationary.
While the passenger seat was off, I took the opportunity to replace the fixed hinge in the middle with a folding one, I chose a modified one from outdoor technical.
Remove the top bolts from both ends of the seats and slacken the lower ones, then remove the centre bracket fixings from under the seat base.
Then the seat back can be removed, in the next picture you can see the difference between the standard centre hinge on the left and the new reclined one.
Turning the seat back upside down, we then unclipped the seat cover at the bottom and rolled the seat cover down to reveal the foam.
Pulling the foam to one side you then get access to the three bolts that hold the centre hinge in, remove these and then remove the hinge. Replace this with then new hinge and replace the three bolts.
Pull the cover back and clip it back together and refit, the seat reclines a lot more than the standard one, and now folds flat, which will make it easier to climb up into the top bunk when the roof is up.
