About that interior: I see you've got it stripped to the bare floor, so before you go slapping the carpet back in, think about putting some foil-and-foam duct insulation down. I know there's a crapload of insulation under the carpet, but this stuff works well, and it's cheap. I put some under my hood to replace the fiberglass pad, some more in the quarter panels, and it really quiets things down. Keeps the panels from drumming, which the jute doesn't.

Good call Stu and definitely on my to-do list already. Was planning on going the Dynamat route. It seemed the best choice given the reviews (I've not used this particular flavor previously). Not all were glowing, but in comparison to the review of similar products, Dynamat seemed to fare better than the others.

What did you use?

I looked at Dynamat, but that [censored]'s too expensive, like 80 bucks for enough to do my hood. At least twice that for a floorpan. I picked this up at Lowe's:



20 bucks a roll, one was enough to do the hood.

Yeah the Dynamat isn't cheap, which is one of its detractive features. I wonder how well the more inexpensive duct insulation from a box store will hold up under the stressful environment of an engine bay? Time will tell the story I suppose. At any rate, I plan on doing something and had earmarked the Dynamat stuff. However that's off into the future a bit, so I tabled the subject there when I was considering it some time ago. 'Will jump off of that bridge again when I get there.

I have rattletrap everywhere. Entire trunk, lid, floor, headliner, doors etc

Alright, so I decided that I would do some cleaning tonight to pass the time. I didn't have a lot of it anyway, but what I did have could be put to good use by preparing components that will be needed soon enough. With that in mind I pulled the front and back covers, the oil pump and the pickup tube from the engine parts pile:


In looking at them, I knew that I'd come out of this sub-endeavor with the notion of reusing at least two of them, possibly three. I suspected however that I'd opt for a new pump and in the end, I'd be right.

Is that the Fatmat stuff? How do you like it? Does it work well?

I began with the rear cover:


Which wasn't incredibly dirty, but I decided to give it a clean anyway. The inside was merely oil stained:


Both of these covers are made of aluminum, so IMHO while they'll cleanup easily enough, you don't want to be too aggressive with the process either. Particularly in regard to the mating surfaces. I've found that a quasi-soft bristled brush in a parts washer will do the job well. Scotchbrite the more persistent areas, but do so minimally on any mating surfaces. That's been my recipe anyway, FWIW.

Like with the pistons, my goal was not a perfect clean here, just a decent-plus one. In the end the rear cover came out better than when it went in, and the mating surfaces (to include the rear seal surface) were all showing their bright, shiny metal, so I was good with that:


Inside things were ok:


Good enough for our purposes. On to the next thing...

Its labeled rattletrap extreme. I dont know if they changed the name. It works awesome, besides the 06 having the least miles its the reason I dumped 3/4 of my hoard in perf parts. It came wired up with the mat installed.

Next was the oil pump:


The pump on the 4.6 is the conventional type, driven by the crankshaft via a keyway, in which two gears plus a pressure relief spring and valve combination are responsible for generating and maintaining the oil pressure for the engine. This stock pump has an aluminum backing plate that is held in by a handful+ of set screws:

I was reminded of an article where the backing plate of the oil pump can flex and lose volume. nvm thats a 3 valve problem

Hmmmmmmm...good. Thank you for the feedback. I'll have to research the Fatmat/rattletrap stuff a little further when the time comes. I vaguely recall seeing it when I did the initial look-see.

Thanks!

Correct, I read that as well. Didn't appear to be an issue with the 2-valve 4.6s from what I recall, as you mentioned. Still, as I will get to, I have decided not to reuse this pump.

FWIW, these screws thread in and out with a T-30:


And have a torque value of 100 in-lbs. I wouldn't need to apply that, but thought I'd pass the information along anyway.

So it came apart easily enough: