Changing Rear Door Speakrs in CC w/ RF

bestatchess · 09-18-2004, 07:23 PM

After removing the door panels and the rear RF speakers, I broke the speaker out of one of them so as to use the OEM housing as a router template, using a flush trim router bit with a roller that follows the outline of the OEM housing. I used 1/2" MDF to make the ring with the lobes for the bolt holes, and then used 3/4" MDF to make a plain round ring using a circle jig. Then I glued the two rings together.

bestatchess · 09-18-2004, 07:31 PM

I then drilled the rings for the bolt holes to mount to the door and for the holes to mount the speakers. I put T-nuts for the speaker mount bolts. I also notched the MDF rings to accommodate the speaker wire and painted them with a couple of coats of exterior grade black spray paint to seal the MDF against moisture.

I used 6 mm 1" bolts w/ flat washer, lock washer & nut and blue locktite to mount the MDF rings on the doors, and hex socket head screws to mount the speakers.

I also used some foam baffles from crutchfield to shield the speakers against moisture.

bestatchess · 09-18-2004, 07:38 PM

Next, I followed the fantastic suggestion posted by somebody to use a big nylon cable tie to fish 12 gage speaker wire through the door grommet. This is actually the wires (positive and negative) that go from the amp to the crossover.

bestatchess · 09-18-2004, 07:42 PM

Fishing was good, so next I put the speaker wire in a little split loom and zip tied it so it would not get sawed on the sharp door edges.

bestatchess · 09-18-2004, 07:56 PM

Then I bolted the MDF ring to the door. There is a lockwasher and a nut and some blue locktite on the end of each bolt, inside the door. There is sound deadening mat on the door under the MDF ring.

Next, the baffle is stuck in the ring so as to provide a sheltered, waterproof, environment for the speaker portion that will reside inside the door. (sorry for the lousy focus).

Next, the speaker (with the speaker wire soldered to the speaker terminals) is positioned inside the baffle, the speaker wire located in the notch, and the speaker is attached to the MDF ring by hex recess socket headed screws which extend through the speaker, through the baffle, through the MDF ring, and into engagement with the T-nuts. A little blue locktite on the screws will hopefully keep them from vibrating loose.

The MDF ring and speaker seem to be very solidly mounted, and hopefully the foam baffle and sound deadening mat will keep the door from resonating.

It is important to pay attention to all of the dimensions so that the inner side of the baffle clears the window glass in a down position. The window glass is spaced about two inches from the plane of the speaker opening in the door.

bestatchess · 09-18-2004, 08:03 PM

The tweeter goes in the stock location, with a little of enlarging the opening with a file and some GE Silicone II to seal around the edge of the hole, and the crossover gets velcroed in the arm rest hollow inside the door panel with industrial strenght velcro.

The foam weatherstripping and or plastic ring on the inner side of the door panel that engages the speaker may require a little adjustment.

duffer18 · 09-19-2004, 07:21 AM

nice work!

smoketitan · 09-19-2004, 06:45 PM

nice work man!!!!!- I can tell you take your time in your installs!!!!

may I ask why you added the foam cups though?? by doing that you have really lost the effect of the sounddeading material in creating a sealed large enclosure for your door speakers. so your speakers are not getting as much air volume to work with.

are your doors leaking or something--didi you remove the plastic protective peivce or something ( I matted and then put the plastic piece back on)

either way great pics

bestatchess · 09-20-2004, 05:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoketitan

nice work man!!!!!- I can tell you take your time in your installs!!!!

may I ask why you added the foam cups though?? by doing that you have really lost the effect of the sounddeading material in creating a sealed large enclosure for your door speakers. so your speakers are not getting as much air volume to work with.

are your doors leaking or something--didi you remove the plastic protective peivce or something ( I matted and then put the plastic piece back on)

either way great pics

The backs of the OEM rear door speakers were wet (really wet, like you held them under a shower). The doors leak between the outer door and the interior door sheet metal (inside the door), so the plastic skin doesn't protect the back of speaker. There are drain holes in the bottom of the door to drain water (rain, car wash) that seem to be working as I didn't have any water in the doors. I had reservations about the acoustic effect of the foam baffles, but I figure it was better than having soaking wet speakers. After I get the sound foam on, I am going to put some heavy plastic sheet for a vapor barrier, as the original plastic sheets got pretty wasted when I tore them off the doors.

I made MDF rings for the front (two thicknesses of 3/4" MDF glued together)also, similar to the back except the bottom piece of MDF looks more like a map of the U.S. instead of a ring. The OEM plastic mounts seem to lack structural rigidity (judging from the way they were vibrating when I cut them up with a sawzall to make router templates). I had some plastic 6x9 to 6.5 adapters from crutchfield that fit the OEM front mounts, but both the OEM mounts and the crutchfield adapter were too small to fit my speakers. But I think the MDF rings are better anyway (completely rigid mounting with no potential for vibrating). Anyway, the OEM front speaker mounts have a partial plastic shield for the back of the speaker, whereas the rear OEM speakers were completely unprotected. (no plastic flap or anything).

If it sounds bad with the foam baffles enclosing the backs of the speakers, I was thinking about cutting the foam baffles so the bottom and sides are open, but leaving sort of an "awning" above the back of the speakers to shield the speaker from water.

A couple of other OEM differences: the front door panels have sound insulation, the rear door panels have none; the latch cables (Bowden cables) in the front doors have foam sleeves (like miniature foam pipe insulation) where they go through the door sheet metal, the back have none. (I previously posted a thread about the rear door Bowden cables sawing against the door sheet metal) It seems like they dropped the ball on the rear doors.

I have all the interior out right now, also have all the wire fished through the door grommets, and I need to install sound mat & foam sound installation and put it back together.

For anybody fishing speaker wire through the door grommets, the big nylon cable tie works great. For the front passenger grommet, I disconnected the plastic clips holding the wire to the door sheet metal (to get some slack), pushed the grommet end that engages the door out into the space between the door and the frame, removed the glove box assembly, and was able to push the pointy end of the cable tie out through the grommet opening under the dash. I had to remove the glove box assembly so as to be able to stick my hand in and grab the the end of the cable tie as there is a big white plastic wire connector block that obstructs access to the grommet opening from under the dash.

Another tip, those flexible goose neck flashlights are wonderful. I have the deWalt 18V that came with the 18V tool set, but I think there are others (snakelight, etc.).

SarkaZm · 09-20-2004, 04:32 PM

Best, very thurough work you seem to be doing! Since you said you have the interior out right now, I have to ask, did you remove the center console (shifter/storage compartment area)? If so how difficult was it to remove? I will be doing similar work (hopefully in the near future) and appreciate all the info you are providing. Are you taking a lot of pictures to post when you are done? I know you've posted a lot of pictures already! Keep up the good work, it should sound great! BTW, The baffles shouldn't affect the sound too much, they may even make them sound a little deeper. You door speakers don't require that much air space and the space in the door is probably too much.

smoketitan · 09-20-2004, 05:12 PM

WOW!!!!! is all I have to say man your install is on a whole other level--very impressed with your attention to detail. I just used a thin screwedriver to route my wire through the rubber grommets,and then pulled it through, and I concur even in the crew cab the rear doors seems like they jsut said forget it as far a qaulity.

are you matting the floors also---you are a better man than me as I didnt have the patience--but something tells me you will reap the benefits.

one more thing I can recommend on the doors, make sure you mat the inside of the doors as well, and reach up as high as you possibly can. also if you have the time mat the corners very well, and try to seal them off well, as the top corners of the doors (all four ) will ring is not matted properly in the inside

WOW IS ALL I CAN SAY MAN!!!!! A + work bro

IQ9 · 10-11-2004, 08:05 PM

Beautiful work!! What speakers did you replace those stellar Clarion Fostagesonics?

bestatchess · 10-11-2004, 08:53 PM

I got a couple of component sets from www.edesignaudio.com

They seem to be CDT w/o the CDT logo (& high price). The crossover's carry the CDT brand.

IQ9 · 10-11-2004, 10:49 PM

Thanks for the info. I really need to do something and quickly at that.

Justintoxicated · 03-25-2005, 08:33 PM

VERY good post! This is some usefull stuff! I need to find a way to mount my components in the front but I don't have a clue how I am going to get Some MDF adapters properly cutto house my speakers I have. So I'm not sure what I am going to do because I don't want to take the pannel off, Pull out a speaker put the pannel back on untill I can find a way to make an adapter then pull it off again to install. I might just have to have someone else do it