I just lost ~10 lbs in 1 hour!!

[IronMonkeyL255]

I got bored yesterday, so I removed my rear seats and all the crap in my trunk. I removed the rear package shelf cover thingy and gave it a fiberglass backing to help stiffen it up for when I removed a bit around the speaker holes. Now the grills for my speakers fit flush with the top of the pad. Looks MUCH better.

While I had everything out, I got to thinking.... I wonder how hard it would be to remove that tar sound deadening crap. I pulled at the corner of the sheet under the rear seat and lifted ~1/4 of it.

An hour later, and I removed all of it from the trunk and rear seat area.

Not a huge amount of weight, but every little bit helps.

[DLC]

Wow, usually the sound-deadening tar stuff is hard to get out. Maybe it's the stuff in the passenger compartment that i've seen people using dry ice on.

[IronMonkeyL255]

Also, I think it helps that the adhesive is ~16 years old.

[LaureltheQueen]

i'd imagine that goo gone or de-solv-it would work to get the gum out from that

[IronMonkeyL255]

I may try that, but now that it's all up, I noticed that the adhesive isn't sticky at all. Not one bit of sticky left.

I also pulled out the 2 little metal plug thingies (the middle hole was covered in tape...?) that were covered in tar. Just got done cleaning them up and re-installing them with silicon.

[IronMonkeyL255]

And to clean the screwdriver I used for stubborn spots, I just heated it up with a zippo and wiped the tar off on a shop towel.

[IronMonkeyL255]

The floorpans are a bit more difficult. More flat surfaces, so it is stuck on better.

Took me ~2 hours to do both of the the rear footwells and half of the tranny hump.

[tahiti350]

My wagon had been over something that pushed the floor pans up, when I stomped on them to push them back down most of the floor sheet came loose in 2" peices. Looks like i could have pulled the rest in about 30 minutes, but prefer to keep the noise level down

[555BCTurbo]

Why sacrifice comfort for 10lbs??

You could have yourself and your passengers take a shit before you go and it would equal the same...

[Splinter]

I'm probably going to end up dynamating most of the body panels this summer.

They say every 10 lbs you drop is another HP, so it looks like Ill have to squeeze another 10hp out of the engine to compensate

[IronMonkeyL255]

I didn't sacrifice any comfort.

I haven't noticed any real difference since I did it. Everything else in the car makes so much noise, I don't notice a slight increase in road noise.

This was really more of a 'because I'm bored, broke, and want to work on my car' mod. I didn't expect to see a huge improvement in performance or decline in comfort, and I wasn't disappointed.

It did feel a bit faster with no back seats, though. That was probably psychological, and it was DEFINITELY louder, but my butt dyno noticed a slight increase.

[NuwanD]

I noticed a difference more so under braking with the back seats pulled.

You are VERY lucky the tar matting came out that easily it usually isn't the case at all. I did my entire car before installing the roll cage and it was quite the mess. I used mallot and a chisel taking 1 sq. in. off at a time, and then using a degreaser to remove the remaining residue.

The only areas that were easy are where the sheets were not installed properly at the factory, either dirty surface of not enough pressure applied. Cold weather or dry ice makes things easier but not by much.

It's 22ish lbs for all the tar matting in the car... I kept every piece and weighed it once I was done. The batting w/rubber backing along the firewall weighs quite a bit as well but really increases interior sound levels by a large margin.

If you pulled the matting off the shock towers you won't hear a difference till you drive in the rain or a gravel road