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It's
been a few years since I actually performed this installation, so I decided
to document it while I was putting in the new interior. What you see here
is a free air sub woofer with a 3/4 inch particle board surround. I created
the pattern for the wood by cutting and fitting a piece of cardboard until
I was satisfied with the fit and then transferred it to the particle board.
Note that I routed a pair of RCA cables, an amplifier turn-on wire, and
battery power wire through the existing body grommet at the top right. The
speaker wires are routed through the hole at the other side of the car.
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| In
order to fabricate grills (I lost one of the old ones), I used a piece of
14 gauge expanded metal mesh that I bought at Tractor Supply and cut it
to shape from the existing cubby hole using tin snips. |
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| I
painted the mesh black using self-etching primer to inhibit rust. The etching
primer is an awesome paint for bare metals. It's highly chip resistant,
doesn't flake, and comes in a can at auto paint supply houses. |
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| In
order to cover the new speaker grill, I used the same grey headliner material
that I used throughout the car. I sprayed a light coat of 3M Super 77 adhesive,
a slightly lighter bodied and finer misting adhesive than the Super Trim
adhesive, on one side of the metal mesh and the foam backing of the material.
Bass frequencies are typically non-directional below about 80Hz and there
is no need for acoustically transparent material in this type of application. |
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| Using
an Exacto blade, I pressed the new grill into place and cut slits where
the original mounting tabs were poking through and bent them over to hold
everything in place. |
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| This
is how the final installation looks. A few words of caution on using this
method: My original interior, for some reason, allowed me enough clearance
for the seat belts to use one speaker on each side. This is ideal for a
free air installation because the speakers don't have a lot to push against
in order to move air and create sound. With my new interior, the passenger
side speaker could not be installed because it interfered with seat belt
operation. I plan to remedy this later by installing the speaker baffle
behind the available mounting flange and using Blaupunkt's new, super low
profile sub. |
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| For
front speaker installation, I decided to forego the old stereo design
(6 channels, 6 speakers, and an electronic cross-over), and just drive
the door's coaxial speakers with the head unit. I did, however, insist
on heavier wire than the OEM provided. Rather than repeat existing work,
refer to Ed Sowell's method of installing front speaker wire by following
the link...You will swear and scrape stuff, but I managed it in about
an hour while the remains of hurrican Ivan was blowing outside my open
garage. |
Front
Speaker Re-wire |