How to quiet down those car doors

Question:

I am restoring a 1948 Chevrolet convertible. I have the door panels off and I would like to make the doors as quiet as a new car. All the various linkages and the door itself seem to make a lot of noise. When I shut the door you can hear door linkage and the window linkage mechanism banging together. What can I do to quiet down the car before I put the panels back on?

Answer:

I don’t think it’s feasible to make the doors in your 1948 Chevy as quiet as the doors in a new car but you can certainly make them a lot quieter than they are right now.

Wrap or coat all of the parts in the door with rubber of one type or another to eliminate or at least diminish the rattling and clanking. Use shrink wrap tubing and products like 3M Scotch Rubber Mastic Tape, a 65-mil-thick rubber tape that is available in various widths and lengths.

Obviously, you need to make sure the tape, tubing or other materials you use don’t interfere with the function of the door latch hardware, window mechanisms, and other moving parts inside the door.

You also can use aerosol rubberized undercoating to help quiet the parts inside the doors, but take care to avoid plugging drain holes in the bottoms of the doors.

Another worthwhile thing you can do is line the insides of the doors with sound deadening material. Sheets or rolls of this type of material are readily available from a wide variety of vendors, including BQuiet (www.b-quiet.com) and Soundproof Foam www.soundprooffoam.com).