1963 Etype FHC – Anti Drumming Material (Flintkote)

Now that paint if finally complete, I can turn to some simpler tasks. One of the first ones I tackled was the installation of Anti Drumming Material. Drumming can be defined as what a flat sheet metal plate does when it is vibrated. It acts like a drum and is thus noisy. I have no way of knowing but I suspect that Jaguar test engineer Norman Dewis identified road noise that could be quieted with the addition of anti drumming material. In those days, anti drumming material was pretty unsophisticated. It is bascially thin sheets of rubber or asphaltic material. The anti drumming material is actually listed in the Spare Parts Catalogue (SPC). In addition to being called anti drumming material, the SPC specifies a specific brand, Flintkote.

The SPC specifies specific pieces to be applied. The descriptions are somewhat generic, so in addition to the SPC callouts, I reviewed photos of similar vintage cars to mine. The material seems to have a distinctive diamond pattern on its surface. On my 63 FHC, I found photos showing in on the front and rear floor pans and on the bulkhead areas rear of the floors. It is also specified in the doors.

I used a modern equivalent, 3M Sound Deadening Pad P/N 08840. It is about 1/16″ thick, has a sticky backing, and has a diamond pattern. I test fit the pieces, cutting them to the desired shape. Especially those pieces in the rear floor pan area required cutouts to expose critical fasteners such as for the seat rails. I used a 1/2″ copper water pipe with one end ground to a taper to neatly punch out the holes. I purchased a generic sold rubber grommet kit off of Amazon and installed the grommets in the drain holes prior to installing the pads. The material is easy to work with and if heat is applied with a heat gun, can be formed to mimic the various depressions in the sheet metal.

BTW, it appears that the pads from the factory were body color. I would surmize that the pads were added at the factory before paint. Sounds like a recipe for rust to me. My floors were fully painted and then the pads were applied. I thought about painting them but they will rarely be seen and I was worried about paint adhesion to the pads, so I left them black.

It was a shock to undertake a job on the Etype that could be completed in one morning!

I have included a set of photos of the floors before and after application of the pads.