0 items - $0.00
No products in the cart.
Sound Deadening and Insulation for 4WDs, Utes and Canopies
A touring build is loud in ways a daily driver is not. You are on corrugations for hours, the back of the vehicle is a steel box with nothing in it, and every drawer, fridge and jerry can has a panel behind it that drums.
Sound deadening fixes the panels. This page covers where it goes in a 4WD, a ute canopy or a wagon, and how much you need.
For heat coming off the engine and exhaust rather than noise, our 4WD and touring heat protection page maps the common touring heat problems to the products that solve them. What sound deadening is and how it works is covered in car sound deadener explained.
Why a canopy or a tray drums
A canopy is a large, flat, unsupported steel or aluminium panel with air behind it. Hit a corrugated road and the panel vibrates. The vibration is the noise, and it is amplified by the empty box behind it.
Mass stops it. A sound deadening sheet pressed onto the middle of a panel makes that panel too heavy to ring at the frequency the road is feeding it. You do not need to cover everything. You need mass where the panel is largest and least supported, which is the middle.
Where sound deadening goes in a 4WD
| Area | Coverage | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Cabin floor | 100 per cent, under the carpet | The largest panel and the closest to the road |
| Front door skins | The flat inner skin, behind the trim | Closest hard surface to your ear |
| Rear door or tailgate | The flat sections | Usually untreated from the factory |
| Wheel arches, inside the vehicle | The flat faces you can reach | Stone and tyre noise arrives here |
| Wagon rear floor and side panels | Floor fully, side panels in the centre | Large empty panels behind the trim |
| Canopy walls and roof | Sections in the centre of each panel, around 20 to 30 per cent | Edges are already braced by the frame |
| Canopy floor | 100 per cent | Road noise and drawer rumble both come through it |
The 20 to 30 per cent figure on large panels is not a shortcut. Full coverage on a braced panel adds weight for very little gain, and weight matters in a touring build.
What to order for a 4WD or ute build
Kool Wrap sound deadening sheets are 50 x 32cm, around 2mm thick at 3kg per square metre, with an aluminium top layer. Cut them with scissors, peel and press.
| Job | Pack |
|---|---|
| Four doors | Twelve sheets, roller included |
| Cabin floor and doors | Twenty-four sheets |
| A small canopy or wagon rear | Twenty-four sheets |
| A canopy fit-out with lining over the top | The Small Van and 4WD kit, 3.84 square metres of deadener with 10 square metres of 10mm Van Liner and a free roller |
Kit #1 is the one built for this. The deadener goes on the metal and the Van Liner goes over it, which is the right order and the reason the two are packaged together.
Sound and heat in a canopy are two layers, not one
Deadening sheets add mass and stop the drumming. They do not stop the canopy getting hot in the sun.
For that, add foil bubble insulation behind the lining panels, with the joins taped. It is waterproof, it blocks up to 95 per cent of radiant heat, and it needs an air gap in front of it to work, which is exactly what sits behind a lining panel.
Order of work in a canopy: deadener on the bare metal, foil bubble or Van Liner over it, lining panels last.
4WD window insulation
Glass is the weakest thermal panel in any vehicle. A 4WD parked in the sun takes most of its cabin heat through the windows, and at night the same glass loses it again.
Cut reflective sheet to the shape of each window and make removable panels. Foil bubble insulation is the usual choice because it is 5mm thick, blocks up to 95 per cent of radiant heat, is waterproof and cuts with scissors. Trace the glass onto the sheet, cut slightly oversize, and let the panel wedge itself into the window frame. Foil side out.
For the windows in a canopy or a camper build, the same panels work and can live behind the lining when they are not in use.
Window panels are a heat job, not a noise job. They do nothing for drumming, and sound deadening does nothing for the glass.
The other noises in a touring build
Sound deadening handles panels. It does not handle everything.
- Engine and diesel clatter comes through the firewall and over the bonnet. That is under bonnet insulation and deadener on the cabin side of the firewall.
- Drawer and load rattle is a fitment problem. No amount of deadener fixes a drawer that is not packed tight.
- A hot floor over the exhaust is heat, not noise, and it is a shielding job. Our hot floor fix for LandCruisers, 4WDs and utes covers it.
- Exhaust noise itself is a muffler question and not something Kool Wrap sells into.
Doing it in the right order
Strip the interior back to metal first. It is the only time you will have access, and going back later to do a panel you skipped means pulling everything out again.
- Everything out. Carpet, trim, drawers, lining.
- Degrease every panel you intend to treat.
- Deadener down. Floor first, then doors, then the large panels.
- Roll every sheet hard, especially the edges.
- Insulation layer over the top where you want heat control as well.
- Lining, trim and drawers back in.
Do the floor even if you are short on material. It is the panel that pays.
Build it once
Tell us your vehicle, your canopy and what you are fitting out. Call 1300 44 33 34 or email sales@koolwrap.com.au and we will work out the quantities with you. Kool Wrap has supplied heat and sound protection in Australia since 1995, from our office in Rowville, Victoria, and ships Australia-wide with tracking sent after dispatch.
