Living in the Roadtrek - Quieting the Ride Part II

In our last article we started talked about quieting down the inside the Roadtrek. This article continues with Part II of Quieting the Ride.

With the cabinets in the back secured, there was a noticeable difference in noise but there were still a lot of noises that had to be dealt with. It is helpful if you drive with someone sitting on the floor in the middle. Yes, this is not the safest thing to do but that person will be able to pinpoint where the noises are coming from - and since some of the noises may be coming from the seats, it is necessary to do this and not be on those seats that will not be occupied when you are usually traveling.

One big source of noise comes from the metal plate that sits inserted into the metal floor and covers the floor drain for the shower. This plate is not attached in anyway and is metal on metal that bangs with every bump. The solution to this was told to me on one of the forums and is simple to do. Go to a home store and purchase rubber weather stripping. At Home Depot we found Frost King Epom Rubber Weatherseal Self Stick Tape - 3/8" wide, 1/8" thick Ribbed. It is self-adhesive and is easy to cut to size with a scissor. The tape is double width and splits down the middle. You are only using one half strip for each edge. Take the plate out of the floor. Cut a strip, peel off the backing paper, and put it along the length of each edge of the plate that contacts the floor. You are putting this on the plate and not the floor. You have now added a noise cushion on the plate. NOW - there is a problem that you have created by doing this. You have disabled one of the functions of this plate and that is to allow water to flow through the edges where it meets the floor and down to the drain. The solution is to just remove this plate when you use the shower and return it when you are done. There is no drawback to doing this and the noise saving is well worth this minor inconvenience. This quieted one of the most significant noises inside the Roadtrek.

In the Roadtrek 190 Popular you have one passenger seat in the front. Because this seat is designed to turn into a third bed with an optional cushion, the seat is made so that the seat back is removable. There is a lot of clearance and movement around the knob that holds the seat back against the cabinet that it sits in front of,the seat back, and the cabinet. This seat back bounces around a lot when you drive. The only way that I could see to stop the movement was to use foam to wedge the seat back cushion tightly in place against the cabinet. You can see the yellow foam. this is a piece of three inch foam that tightly folded and wedged. The white cord is an electric power strip that is attached to the outlet in the door well next to this seat.

One of the biggest culprits creating noise is the television wall bracket in the rear of the Roadtrek. The bracket has a locking knob but the screen still vibrates and wobbles making a racket as you bump along the road. This was easily solved with elastic Velcro belts - sold in pairs and both are used for the TV. Here is how it is done. Of course, these are removed each time the set is used and replaced again before driving. This takes a few minutes to do but is worth it. Just make sure you do not put the plastic buckles over any part of the screen. You do need to pull tight to get this secured.

Another thing to check on the television bracket is that all of the screws and nuts on the moving parts of the bracket are as tight as possible without interfering with their movement. We had one nut that continually vibrated loose. I used Locktite washer glue (non-permanent) on that nut to get it in place and not open.

The glass plate inside the microwave makes a lot of noise while driving and may also break if bumped to hard. Someone on one of the forums suggested sewing a case for this to ride in made from two quilted placemats with a third sewn to the front in half to make a pocket for the plastic stand that it sits on inside to protect that as well. Meryl made a variation of this. It does well to protect the pieces but it still banged around inside. I found another quieting material to use to solve this problem. A pool noodle - a plastic foam float sold for a few dollars in the summer all over.

This is just a small piece that I have left from several uses inside the Roadtrek.

And here it is being used inside the microwave to hold the glass plate in place as we drive. Cut a piece just slightly larger than the distance between the plate and the top of the microwave. You want to have some pressure exerted by the foam BUT not enough to break anything if there is a real hard bump. It works very well.

I have found a lot of uses for this foam noodle. If you put cans in the fridge they will rattle around on the shelves in the door. A few can sized pieces of foam noodle will quiet those right down.







I am also using it to keep the front table that stores hanging down inside a slim cabinet in the front side of the Roadtrek from banging around. We modified this table, so the swing is a lot more drastic now than it had been, but even before this table made noise swinging inside the cabinet. (More about the modification in another article.) 

This is a noise that I am not certain about. It has always seemed that there is an noise coming from inside the bathroom that was still there when everything was taken off of the shelf inside there. I think that it is the toilet seat bouncing. To secure this we used something that we bought in Camping World that is supposed to secure things in a cabinet or inside the refrigerator, but did not work well for any of that. It does work on the toilet.

It is a rubber tube with a suction cup on each end. The suction cups are attached to the sides and the tube stretches over the top holding the seat down. Now, I am not certain that this is necessary, as we have forgotten to secure it and did not notice any noise. The toilet seat is just light plastic and any noise that it makes should not be very loud, but we still use this when we remember to secure it. The rubber tube does have a tendency to pull the suction cups off depending on the humidity. I may replace the rubber tube with just a length of rope attached to the suction cups.

The floor in the middle of the Roadtrek is metal. The rest is carpeted. Other than the shower drain plate there is nothing about the metal floor that will make noise, but it does reflect noise. To help quiet the Roadtrek down even more and to give us a nice comfortable and warmer floor to walk on in the middle, we got a rubber mat that fits perfectly. We found this in Sears in the tool department. It is made to go on a garage or workshop floor. It also makes the floor easy to clean if mud gets trekked inside, as all you need to do is pull the mat outside and wash it off. As you see in the photo, all is covered with the exception of a small area that is under the bed cushions when the bed is made up.

BASKETS

Baskets not only hold things in place on shelves but they keep things from moving around. We found these baskets in a craft supply store. These are fabric but any baskets that fit on the shelves will help
not only keep things quiet but organized too. This is the shelf in the bathroom. It was not easy to find baskets to fit it.



Addendum - 2019

Finally - there are two noises that we have never found the source of - one is a heavy banging inside toward the passenger side mid-way back and when on rough roads that noise is a banging rattle. The other noise is a harmonic sound which I have a feeling is coming from air moving over the open black tank vent on the roof - as the sound is similar to the sound you get when blowing across the top of an open bottle. That sound comes and goes - and has no relation to road surface.