Nice to have these photos for reference, thanks for posting !

 

You bet! It's not often that you get to see how wires, hoses, and ducts are routed.

 

It also make me appreciate how maddeningly complex the engineering was. Sheet metal stamped with relief cuts and cutout to make room for wires and ducts. Things routed under seats and between the seat frame to reach the rear.
And then rolled up airbags and deployment canisters.

I'm curious what all this is covered by? Panels? Denser foam?

Also curious to find out how much attentuation you got out of the KilMat when it's all finished and buttoned up.

 

That's a crazy amount of work. I've removed and replaced the interior on a small convertible and it was a pain. I can't even imagine how much work this is.

How does the sunshade for the sunroof attach? Ours rattles a bit at times and I'd like to figure out what's going on.

 

No kidding, it really blows your mind when you consider the amount of work that went into each little piece. All the designing, stress testing, crash testing, etc that went into the final piece you're looking at. It's really cool to see how thick the pillars of the car are, and how thick the metal is when you knock on it.

On the floors most of the ducting and wiring is covered by those big gray styrofoam pieces. They're all formed so that everything fits just so. In the front the bottom of the carpet has these super thick pieces of foam underneath, maybe 2 or 3 inches thick. The second row carpet has some padding, but not as much. The curtain airbags are covered by the headliner, which isn't directly fastened to the roof. It's just sort of suspended in place by all of the ancillary pieces around it like the overhead lights, sun visors, grab handles, etc, so the airbags have no problem blowing past it.

It was definitely more work than I expected. I figured, hey, an easy day to get everything out. At the end of a long day I still had to pull the dashboard and headliner. I'm sure it still could be done in a day, but I was going at an easy pace so as to not break anything, and study how things went together. I keep thinking about how much more difficult it would be in something like a sedan with much less room to move around. I mean, how do you get the headliner in and out??

As best I can tell, the sunshade just hangs out in the rail the way you'd expect, though getting it out can apparently be a challenge. Once you have the headliner out, though, it's all just right there. I can't imagine there's much to it at that point. This thread may be of help. I'll get some more detailed pictures of the setup and post it there.

I almost forgot, here's the back of the dashboard! It didn't occur to me until I had it out that I'll need to switch the VIN plate to the new dashboard. It's just a pair of rivets so no big deal.

 

This is fantastic, thanks for taking the time to document for us!

I keep thinking about how much more difficult it would be in something like a sedan with much less room to move around. I mean, how do you get the headliner in and out??

Yeah, it's a bit of a pain. There's a great write-up in the P1 forum, as nearly all of us who own P1s with sunroofs that didn't have the sunroof drain fix done have had to redo our headliners. I found it easiest just to remove the front seats, but still had to bend the headliner a bit to get it out/back in.

While you have everything out, take a good look at that fuel pump. No better time to seal it (or replace it) if it's leaking!

BD

'06 S40 M66 T5 FWD, '08 C70 M66 T5 Premier Plus, '11 XC90 V8 AWD, '13 C70 T5 Platinum P* ('94 850 Turbo, '05 S60 T5 FWD, & '04 XC90 2.5T AWD R.I.P.)

 

Yeah if circumstances were to put me in the market again in the next few years I would very likely end up with the V8 too. I only hear nice things about them.

 

Yes, you can gap almost any normal car on the road.

 

I parted out an xc90 and stripped it completely inside, so I know how much work that was. You have more patience than me. I would have just traded mine in if wanted a different interior color. Lol.

It really is amazing the level of engineering.

I still have most of the interior sitting in my garage from my part out.

If you need any bits or pieces let me know.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

 

I parted out an xc90 and stripped it completely inside, so I know how much work that was. You have more patience than me. I would have just traded mine in if wanted a different interior color. Lol.

It really is amazing the level of engineering.

I still have most of the interior sitting in my garage from my part out.

If you need any bits or pieces let me know.

Hearing about your experience is part of what motivated me to go through with it, so thanks again! Are the parts you have black or tan? I do need some things like an armrest, center speaker grille, and driver's seat base leather piece.

I ended up working on it again all this weekend and while I still didn't get as far as I wanted, I made some excellent progress. I ended up having to swap the sunroof sunshade so after fumbling my way through I posted an update with what I did in the thread I linked to earlier. Give that a look, jimbofranks. I had planned to reuse some of my existing lighter trim from the ceiling and upper pillars like the grab handles, sun visors, etc. but it turns out that while the color is similar, it's different. Black interiors use more of a light gray whereas tan used...tan. That meant that everything had to get swapped, including the sun shade.

After renting a carpet shampooer for a few hours the mystery stains in the back are gone and the carpets cleaned up pretty well overall. I have the carpets now dropped in, some of the seatbelts transferred over, the dash installed *whew*, the headliner in, and the majority of the stuff from the third row back done. The third row seats are no joke. Not only are they hugely unwieldy, they're incredibly heavy! Again, I highly recommend getting help with those. The dash went in pretty easily. There's two alignment pegs that have to make it into the car body but once those are in you're home free. Fishing the wire out for the alarm LED in the middle of the dash required some careful work with an endoscope and bent coat hanger though.

I filled out the bottom with Kilmat. Other than the doors I think I'm done with it. I wasn't able to install as much as I originally planned, but we'll see how it turns out.

Here's some pictures of the bottom of the carpets. The carpets are backed with black rubber so as to disallow water from going past them. That means that unless liquid goes down the sides of the carpet, it's not going to get into the subfloor. This is great news if you're wondering if it's safe to shampoo the carpets.

Like I mentioned before, the bottom of the carpets are backed with massive chunks of foam, which is also partially how they hold their shape. It reminds me of the bottom of a hot tub or jetted tub. In the front seats it is indeed about 3 inches thick.

And some bonus pictures of the rear area under the third row mat

 

Nice work! I am impressed by what you are doing you that T6. Mine is jealous.

Are you doing anything with the plastic front passenger door sill? Mine broke and am having a hard time sourcing a replacement.

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Are you doing anything with the plastic front passenger door sill? Mine broke and am having a hard time sourcing a replacement.

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Do you mean this piece? You can have it if you want -- send me a PM.

BD

'06 S40 M66 T5 FWD, '08 C70 M66 T5 Premier Plus, '11 XC90 V8 AWD, '13 C70 T5 Platinum P* ('94 850 Turbo, '05 S60 T5 FWD, & '04 XC90 2.5T AWD R.I.P.)

 

I have the center speaker grille, but it's the one with the nav. It's yours if you want it.

Driver's seat bottom is pretty trashed.
Center console armrest is gone.

The parts I have are black/gray from an 03.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

 

Aw that's ok, thanks. I'd end up wanting to replace it with a non-nav one anyway. The one I have seems to have some sort of Palm cradle mounted on it; looks to be OEM. I forgot to write down the part number but I'll post what I find if it's anything interesting.

Any idea how to remove that center speaker without killing anything? The best I've figured so far is slowly lifting around the edges with a pick to get the screen to pop out. I tried prying on the bezel with a trim tool but it left some nasty wrinkles in the dash.

 

Came for an update on your progress and was not disappointed!

I found the updated thread on the sunroof sunscreen - thanks.

 

After another full day it finally looks like a car again. The only thing that's left is to put the caps over the seat bolting points and two door cards. The hardest part of yesterday was the B-pillar seatbelts. The trim piece looks like it splits in the middle but it's actually just one long piece. The problem is it needs to be lifted up over the duct at the bottom, but then pushed really far down so a latch can be engaged at the top. Naturally the latch also wants you to push the bottom of the piece outwards which the duct prevents. I'm not sure how it happened, but they're in and nothing's broken. My advice is to get them installed before installing the door sill trim pieces on either side of it.

I got the seats cleaned, dyed, and conditioned and man what a difference. I used a product called Doc Bailey's which seems to be shoe polish in a squirt bottle. It supposedly cleans and conditions as well, but I already had separate products for those purposes so no comment there. The difference it makes is remarkable.

What the seats looked like before:

And after:

Cool, right?? It makes a tremendous visual difference. Naturally if you look closely you'll still see the cracks in the leather where it wore through.

The real test will be firing it up this weekend and seeing if everything works. I'm reasonably confident I got all of the connectors hooked up, it's just a question of whether it'll freak out over the new airbags, seatbelt pyrotechnics, window switches, seat modules, etc. I'm pretty sure the only things the system cares about are things like the rearview mirror and items on the MOST network, none of which changed. Fingers crossed!

 

I'd be curious to see how well the Doc Bailey's product holds up as well as not transferring its dyes onto your clothing. May want to put a white towel over the seat or wear some old beat around clothes you don't care about for the first couple of drives to make sure there's no staining.

 

That made a heck of a difference. I'll have to keep that in mind for the future.

My seats are starting to show a bit of wear around the side bolsters.

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I was a worried about transfer too, but so far so good. It says to let it sit for an hour after applying and then I put conditioner on. Some of it came off on the towel I applied the conditioner with, but not a whole lot. I'll update with how it fares.

The spots you rub against when getting in and out were where all of the heaviest wear was, naturally. It was trippy to see how much different the condition was compared to something like the back of the seat.

 

Thanks for posting! This is going to come in handy knowing where the D-pillar clips are when I remove them this weekend.
Looking forward to "hearing" how the killmat worked out too!

 

I don't know if you meant to, but you gave me an idea. Here's pictures of the back of all of the interior panels that have clips. Let me know if I forgot any. I only took one of each side, but they're mirrored for the other. I did omit the tailgate and hatch panels since they're ridiculously easy to get off or figure out. Any time I refer to driver's side I'm referring to the left (US).

Driver's door panel. All of the white spots around the edge are clips.

Driver side rear

B and A pillars. The clips on the B pillar are at the bottom. There's metal tabs at the top that grip the car's body under the weatherstripping

C and D pillars

Driver rear cargo wall. I think it's just the two metal clips at the top middle. This side has the fan control you need to unhook, the other side has the accessory outlet.

Cargo ceiling, where the radio receiving components are located. Just the two white tabs in the middle

Driver's rear and front door sills, front of the car at the bottom of the photo, rear of the car at the top. Each of the yellow bits is a clip

Drivers front and rear door sills, front of the car at the top of the photo, rear of the car at the bottom. The two yellow things at the very bottom are stickers. There's two metal clips on the bit that wraps around the wheel well for the rear sill.

And while I'm thinking about the rear sill, all 6 (or 4 as the case may be) of the seatbelts can be released at the end by pushing in the little tab/button in yellow here. They're not actually yellow on your car; I painted it to make it obvious. You can use a pick or screwdriver to push it in. Once you do, the belt pops free. In all 6 cases the button is facing the outside of the car. On the second row you can access it by popping the sill loose and looking underneath. For the third row you have to remove the cargo walls.

To reinstall just make sure the button is popped out (not jammed in) and push the belt back into it.

This does not apply to the center seat in the second row.

 

Very, very helpful photos... Changed how I'm going to approach removal. Thanks again!
Are you going to put foam / bytul on the plastic door cards?

 

The D-pillar pieces are pretty straightforward but let me know if you run into problems.

I didn't put any on the cards themselves (no reason you couldn't though), but I did get the door itself pretty good. I pulled that foam piece off and covered as much of the door skin as possible since that's where you'll get the best bang for your buck. I got the rest of it as best I could, working around all of the components bolted on. I thought I had posted pictures but apparently not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm going to finish up the last two doors this weekend so I'll grab some pictures then.

 

I thought I had posted pictures but apparently not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm going to finish up the last two doors this weekend so I'll grab some pictures then.

Very interested to take a look at the sound proofing of your doors!

 

Thanks!

 

Atraudes a huge thank you from over the pond for sharing this tear down and refit.

Pictures paint a thousand words (or in this case tens of thousands

 

One of the Mods should sticky this post since it’s never been done before with such excellent documentation and photos

 

It's cool to hear so many people are taking an interest! I'm really glad it's coming in handy

After a bit of a speed bump on Saturday and a good part of Sunday, I got my VIDA computer wiped and reinstalled and cleared the resulting SRS warning. Now it's running great, all of the vital systems are working, and it's looking good! I still need to go through and make sure things like the rear accessory outlet, fan controls, etc. are working, but so far so good. I'll get some pictures of the results when I get it in some better light. The garage lights are good for working in, but don't quite cut it when it comes to pictures, it seems.

The Kilmat made a BIG difference. It threw me off at first because the engine noise hasn't changed at all since I wasn't able to pull back the existing sound deadening on the firewall, but there's a lot less road noise. Given that I haven't driven it in about 2 weeks it wasn't really obvious until I noticed that I didn't have to turn the radio up on the drive in this morning. It's still no S-class, but it's so much more comfortable. I definitely recommend that anyone considering it go for it. I used about a box and a half between the doors, floor pan, and some of the ceiling. I was going for "good enough" so I didn't go crazy and try to cover up every possible inch, just whatever made sense.

This was one of the rear doors. I covered the inside panel pretty well, using the smaller leftover bits wherever they'd fit. The second shot is inside the door, on the backside of the outer skin. If you only cover one spot on the door, this is it. Once I got the hang of things I stopped leaving the little sections at the top and bottom empty like I did here, but covering the broad empty spaces is the most important part. Part of what makes the inside of the door so difficult is you have to cut blind. Cut a piece out that looks like it might fit, stick it in, feel with your fingers where it's too big, etc. You get better at it with some practice, but it's still a guessing game.

The rear doors were much simpler than the fronts. Pulling the piece of foam out on the rear gives you a much larger access hole which lets you get away with not removing the speaker (which are riveted in ). There's a little panel that pops out just above the speaker, but it doesn't give you much. The front doors also have a bar running from corner to corner across the middle of the door, which doubles the effort. Pulling the speakers on the front doors is pretty necessary.

At some point I'll pull the panels back off the tailgate and put some sound deadening back there as well. I haven't taken it on the freeway yet, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how it performs.

 

I used about a box and a half between the doors, floor pan, and some of the ceiling.

How much would that be in sq ft? And which thickness did you use?

 

Chiming in with everyone else on what a great post this is in showing owners all the insides and nooks and crannies of our vehicles. I wanted to add that if someone isn't up for such a large job removing all the floor panels and the interior, it's still totally worth it to sound deaden the four doors alone. I used Dynamat several years ago for the doors to improve the stereo quality, but as always was pleasantly surprised at the decreased road noise and bank vault quiet of the XC90 afterwards. Sound deadening a new vehicle is always one of the first "mods" I tend to do as it improves multiple facets of the vehicle all at once.

 

Absolutely! Do the doors first and see whether that meets your needs or not. It's low-hanging fruit compared to everything else and the most effective. I'm giving serious consideration to doing my wife's car now

 

It 80 mil, 36 sq ft per box, so roughly 54 sq ft.