Brown Bread Installation
by Steve Wortham
Estimated time: ??? hours (not done yet)

I bought 35 square feet of Brown Bread sound deadening material.  It comes in rolls, and has an adhesive backing.  Actually this stuff is tar-based, and it's incredibly sticky.  It acts as a sound damper, and it will lower panel resonance and absorb structural vibrations, converting them into heat.

This modification takes a lot of time, but I'm starting to see the benefits.  I've spent about 5 hours on it so far, and I just have the front driver's side door and the license plate done.  But I've learned a few things that has made it easier so that when I start on it again I should be able to polish it off in one day.

First of all, this Brown Bread has an aluminum sheet covering it that can be very sharp, and I started working with this stuff without any gloves.  I kept cutting myself and bleeding all over the place then I'd have to run inside to try stop the bleeding.  That would really slow things down.  So I quickly learned that I needed gloves.  I'm using some thin leather gloves now that have helped a lot.

Secondly, it took me awhile to figure out how to remove the screws on the outside edge of the door panel.  I thought that the plastic plug you see there was all one piece.  So I tried to pry it off like I was used to with Fords.  Big mistake -- apparently that little circular piece in the middle is a little plug, and all you have to do is pop it out with a little screwdriver to uncover the screw underneath.  And the plastic ring serves as a washer for the screw. Oh, OK!  That's not so hard!  After I figured this part out, the rest of the door panel was a piece of cake to remove.

Now you can start cutting pieces off the roll of Brown Bread and placing it on the door.  It should be covering all of the areas where sound can get through.  First I covered the metal on the front piece of aluminum.  This involves a lot of small pieces to get around the wires, electronics, screw holes, and brackets in the way.  Then you'll have to cut some larger pieces to lay inside the cavity of the door.  I reached back in there as best I could through the two large holes on the left.  I managed to cover a large portion of the door back there.  You can also reach back there better after removing the speaker.  Some people may want to remove the front aluminum plate so everything becomes more accessible.  But personally, I didn't want to have to deal with removing the wiring and cables for the door locks, and all that fun stuff. I ended up creating a little gasket for the speaker.  And I also laid thin strips of it along the bottom of the door and I made sure to cover the sides.  These areas are crucial if you are looking to remove the rattles in the car.  I learned this tip from JPJR at elantragtclub.com.  The plastic door panel will vibrate against the door, but when you install some padding along the surrounding edges of where the door panel would go, these vibrations will be silenced.

This one is easy.  Most people probably have the problem of the trunk rattling every time you close it.  The license plate can be backed with Brown Bread, and the problem will be gone.  This would also help prevent rattles if you have a sub in the trunk.

You can see here that I got a little bit messy.  If you make a mistake and you pull off the Brown Bread, the tar tends to stay there.  So, you might need some Goo-Gone for this project.  It works wonders.

Of course I'm not even half way done with this project yet, but I can tell that it's a little quieter already.  Even more obvious, the elusive rattle coming from driver's side door is gone.  When I do finish this project I can then make a more elaborate review of this product and if it's worth the trouble to install.

I bought this Brown Bread from www.b-quiet.com.
If you're interested in other modifications for your 2001+ Elantra, then check out www.elantraxd.com.