Got my 31A hotrod on the road. Test driving now to get the kinks out. Car has loud wind noise, seems to be coming from visor. I know these car weren't designed to travel at high speeds, but wind noise gets bad around 45 or 50 MPH. Is this the reason you see a lot of these cars with large holes cut in the visor ? Or is it done just for looks? Any ideas to lower noise would help.
I drove a slant window (no visor) Victoria for many years. Yes there is a lot of wind noise. How is the gasket between the windshield frame and body? What about the hinge seal? Replacing these with correct reproduction items won't eliminate wind noise but will help some. Also, the correct slides and hardware to tightly close the windshield will help, some. I have no experience with the windshield visor. Finally slow speeds do help a lot, even if not practical today.
There are so many factors that go into it. Without having lots of details, it's hard to say. Back when these old jalopies were first made to roll on at 40mph, wind noise was not even a consideration. One thing that could help is lots of soft surface upholstery inside, the closer to your ears the better. But hot rodding at its most basic motivation is to remove anything such as sound-absorbing m*** as much as possible to arrive at the goal of retina-detaching acceleration. If the visor could be temporarily removed for testing you may get your answer. Really the same applies to just about anything. It's like a flow chart with two possible results....... "Did changing 'X" help or did it hurt?"
-- good detective work - a friend used to own a custom built '31 Chevy Woodie, that he purchased - had more wind noise than was acceptable - so he went about adding sealer along door openings, windows etc - then found out the hard way when too much is too much - at highway speed the locked suicide style p***enger door flew open - his wife was the p***enger - yelled at her not to try to close door - pulled over to side of road - found out that the stereo speaker wiring was the only thing keeping door with car -- yikes! - a little interior air flow is not a bad thing
Windshield is installed with new gaskets, by a professional gl*** man. Lucky to have him as a friend. He has done many A Models. It doesn't open. Still wondering if holes in visor would help. Can't remove, it has been fixed onto the roof. But, I could still cut holes. It goes to paint next week.
I've had 4 deuce pickups which have the doors outside the jam and a visor. I had good wind lace and the windshield was sealed. There was so much wind noise I wore noise cancelling head phones.
My 29 closed cab pickup, same thing. They didn’t make that much noise back in the day because if you were lucky, you lived near a paved road where you “may” get up to 50 mph… You can seal it up every way possible but you are still shoving the frontal area of a sheet of plywood through the air, and that makes noise.
Yep, my ‘31 Coupe does the exact same thing. I installed new windshield weatherstripping, etc. I’m still picking at the issue, but haven’t ‘solved’ it yet. I use earplugs on the highway from time to time. As to your visor question - my impression has been that people drill holes in them so it looks like a race car with lightening holes. I would think that would make even more noise than before. John
I'm relieved, in a way, that my '31 Coupe isn't the only noisy one. I only have about 20 or 25 miles on it since it has been on the road (new FED project has my attention), but I was quite surprised at just how loud it is from wind noise. The fastest I had it so far was 66 MPH according to my phone speedometer app, and I'll just say it seemed really "busy" at that speed. I don't think my T roadster with lakes headers dumping right at the door is any louder. Lynn
Anything over 45 mph is noisy in our 29. I do have holes in our visor which were there when I bought it. I think the holes help to keep the visor from lifting off at speed, but probably make more wind noise. At 75 mph with windows down, it’s perfectly loud, windy and awesome
It sounds like you just need to plan on rolling down the windows, hang your arm out the open window, and enjoy the ride. I would think eliminating the visor completely might improve the wind noise, but probably not by much. Adding holes in the visor will likely increase the wind noise , but it may reduce the vibrations caused by the visor being moved about as the air trapped between it and the windshield tries to rip it off the car, which maybe causing some of what you are calling "wind noise". Any time the wind has to make a change in its movement, it creates a different noise vibration. Some of those different vibrations bother us more then other vibrations. Sometimes modifying the pitch of the vibrations by moving, covering, or eliminating things that causes the wind to change its flow improves things, sometimes it makes things worse. One doesn't have to look very hard at that body style to see how much stuff can change the wind flow as it is going around the car. The question becomes, how much do you want to alter the car body to reduce the changes in the wind flow around it
Are 32-34's this noisy, as well? Since I am building a 34 Tudor, I would like to know. I will put soundproofing in it and do all the things I normally do in my builds to try to keep it fairly quiet.
I recommend about a 300W per channel amp and some good subs. I'm a Packard spe******t. They had a "quiet room" where they used an amplified granite surface to roll bearings and see if they remained within their acceptable noise level. In the 12 cyl product development they had microphones installed in strategic spots to check for sounds and vibrations. The shift knobs were dense closed cell foam so you wouldn't feel the gears and syncros in the trans. Crazy, huh? Guess what, at 50+ MPH you still get some wind noise. It's not bad, likely less than anything offered in the price line, but still there. As said above you're pushing a flat piece of plywood thru the wind. If there's a specific spot check and be sure it's sealed against water (air is a liquid ya know). Am I telling you to just get a Packard? No, but at least get a ride in one if you ever get the chance, especially a 34. My A pickup was a noisy ******* too but I sorta liked that. Last idea, if it's warm enuff crack the windsheild open just a little bit. Let it relieve the buffeting into the car.
Deep six the visor (for a test run before it goes to paint), chop the top 5 inches and install a good stereo. Then cue up some cl***ic Metal albums.
Y'all have become too accustomed to riding in your new cars where $$$BILLIONS have been spent reducing interior wind noise. I don't think one thin dime was spent on interior wind noise reduction in our old cars. You can help it, but you can't fix it. Just gotta live with it!
Just to chap a few ***es in my gang I have a flash of some nice old school hip hop to bang at the right time. A couple pals in particular get beside themselves
33/34 not bad at all compared to the A, especially if it's full fendered w/a hood. The changes from the Model A are dramatic, as it's a much more swoopy overall design including leaned A posts, flush fit doors and rolled windshield/roof header panel. Windshields and doors seal well if you spend some time on them.
I spent a fortune on dyna-mat, lizard skin and weather stripping for my 5 window Deuce. Had that thing sealed up tighter than a can of tennis balls. Wind noise was still LOUD!! Noise cancelling headphones that had a Bluetooth connection to cell phone took care of the problem. ‘Completely shut out the wind noise with the bonus of being able to stream music and radio stations. Contrary to what many say, I could still hear traffic around me as well as sirens and emergency vehicles. I wish I had known about noise cancelling headphones before I invested in all the other things.
If I have the correct perception of your problem, you are looking for a solution to the buffeting of the air by the visor, not from air seeping in at the windshield or doors? My suggestion would be to try making a temporary filler that would fit under the visor so that you still have the visor look, but not the trapped and buffeting air. It could be a flat piece sitting slightly above the front edge, or a rolled curved piece. It would need to be fairly secure, but for test purposes you might be able to just gorilla tape something in place and see if it works. A curved piece might be best.........or it might not help at all. Paint it black so its less noticeable if it works.
The only way to stop wind noise is to leave the car in the garage, even cars like my '32 without visors have a lot of wind noise no matter how well you seal the windshield. It's something you learn to live with. BTW, I had a friend that was convinced that louvering the visor would stop the wind noise, it just added whistling to it. HRP
Wife and I wanted to travel in the 31 a bit. I even put Delta 50 Flowmasters on the exhaust. Too quite on the outside of car and too loud on inside of car. I guess we could ride on the roof and hire a driver.
I used ear plugs in my 32 pickup all of the time at road speed. If you drive 4 hours to a show and your ears are ringing when you get there, your body is trying to tell you something.
A cheap trick we used at Beech aircraft; We put 1/2" square of duct tape to attach 3" strips of yarn all over the airplane. 4" apart. Then we flew the plane with a second plane filming. Rather trial and error after that, but the yarns gave a good idea of the flow patterns. Some of the yarns would point forward. Some were static and some flopped all over. My guess is that a Model A at 70 mph will be total aerodynamic chaos. One method of taming the flow was to put some sand in a stripe of paint at strategic places. (think sandy pinstripes) This allows some control over where the boundary layer gets turbulent. turbulence = noise
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