Quote:
Originally Posted by arctictraveller
This is a very interesting idea. In my case though I notice a large amount of heat that soaks through the floor shortly after driving, likely from the catalytic converter, muffler and the remainder of the exhaust system. In the winter it's great and keeps the interior warm for a couple hours depending on the outside ambient temps. In summer, it really heats up the interior, so I've added even more floor insulation. I like this idea, but I would want an easy way to have a water / dust tight closure. As for dust, perhaps a fitted furnace filter would work.
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I hear you, I'm in FL so spent time and money fighting heat soaking thru the floor. In the original build Timberline insulated the
inside floor of the whole van before putting down the finished flooring.
While driving the area around the transfer case shifter got extremely hot, the floor and doghouse were too warm and should be improved to me. After parking, it got even hotter and soaked in. So I did a couple of things this summer that I feel were well worth it.
- I cut the heat shields off from underneath the catalytic converters and resonators and rotated them to above the converter and resonator similar to how Ford shields the exhaust piping and muffler. My rationalization was that Ford's design was more about shielding whatever you parked over from the extreme heat of the converter and resonator. Since the van has been lifted so much higher than stock I decided it would be fine.
-Secondly, I bought DEI's Floor and Tunnel II product and attached it to the
exterior floor under the van from the rear of the transmission forward all the way around the doghouse and up the driver/passenger floor. I also took the doghouse off and put it over the OEM doghouse insulation. So all that was about $400 of material and a lot of tedious time under the van but to me it was well worth the effort in terms of heat rejection and sound deadening. This product is specifically for exterior use and they recommended it for what I described to them (design temp 1750). It's an aluminum dimpled sheet over insulating material then a self adhesive backing and you better have it where you want it when it touches something...I have no doubt it will never come off. For that reason some of the routes that you have to take to get a given piece where you want it on the underside of the van floor means that you can't always use large pieces, so it's a bit of work. You cut it with tin snips and is about 1/4" thick overall. They sell a aluminized tape for the seams if your picky like me.
....Back to the vent project we're talking about I think I'll cut a circle of this material and stick it to the back side of the screw off round deck ports mentioned in a previous post. So now just need to finalize how to mount a filter material to keep the Florida bug population outside.