Finally got the chance to replace the stock door speakers today. Took a good 4 or 5 hours of work, but at least it's done. Removing the doors went as follows:
First you need to remove the A-pillar panel from each side (the piece of plastic directly beside the rear-view mirrors). The driver's side a-pillar has a wiring harness for the mirror controls that must be detatched. Each door is secured by 9 Hex-Head type screws and 2 Star-head screws. You have to removed the panels behind the door handle and the elbow rest to access the star-head screws and one of the hex heads. After you remove all the screws, there are two plastic "protrustions" at the bottom of the door panels which slide into holes in the door from above. You have to lift the whole door panel up and pull outward rather firmly to finally free the door panel from the door.
The last step in getting acces to the stock speakers is removing the wiring harnesses for the power windows and power lock. You still can't completely remove the door panel, since there's a cord connected to the door handle that couldn't easily be removed (as far as I could tell).
I replaced the stock 5x7's with 6.5" Diamond d6 Coaxials. I made a baffle ring for the new speakes out of 3/4" MDF, and used foam to fill the space between the baffle and the door's metal, since the surface isn't completely flat.
The hardest part was trying to figure out how I was going to run upgraded speaker wire from the dash, through the door to the new speakers. I was ultimately unsuccesful in finding a way to do this, and had to settle with using the stock speaker wire. The grommet which brings the factory wires from the dash to the door terminates in a plug-type harness, making it impossible to run additional wires through without drilling a new hole. Due to the angles involved and my distaste for putting more holes in the vehicle, I reluctantly gave up on running 16 awg speaker wire through the doors.
Once I install my amps, I will have to splice into the factory wires. This is less than optimal since the factory 20 awg provides a little more resisitance than I'd like for 100 watts of amplication, but it should shouldn't have much of a noticeable difference in sound quality. I'd be really interested to see how the people that have seperates in the doors managed to get all the wires from the dash to the door.
Ultimately I installed the speakers:
I'm pretty pleased with the way they sound, and will be adding a sub soon. The stock battery terminal is giving me problems figuring out to attach a 1/0 gauge wire terminal, but a little more improvisation should eventually solve the problem......
Hope this helps anybody looking to do a DIY door speaker replacement.
First you need to remove the A-pillar panel from each side (the piece of plastic directly beside the rear-view mirrors). The driver's side a-pillar has a wiring harness for the mirror controls that must be detatched. Each door is secured by 9 Hex-Head type screws and 2 Star-head screws. You have to removed the panels behind the door handle and the elbow rest to access the star-head screws and one of the hex heads. After you remove all the screws, there are two plastic "protrustions" at the bottom of the door panels which slide into holes in the door from above. You have to lift the whole door panel up and pull outward rather firmly to finally free the door panel from the door.
The last step in getting acces to the stock speakers is removing the wiring harnesses for the power windows and power lock. You still can't completely remove the door panel, since there's a cord connected to the door handle that couldn't easily be removed (as far as I could tell).
I replaced the stock 5x7's with 6.5" Diamond d6 Coaxials. I made a baffle ring for the new speakes out of 3/4" MDF, and used foam to fill the space between the baffle and the door's metal, since the surface isn't completely flat.
The hardest part was trying to figure out how I was going to run upgraded speaker wire from the dash, through the door to the new speakers. I was ultimately unsuccesful in finding a way to do this, and had to settle with using the stock speaker wire. The grommet which brings the factory wires from the dash to the door terminates in a plug-type harness, making it impossible to run additional wires through without drilling a new hole. Due to the angles involved and my distaste for putting more holes in the vehicle, I reluctantly gave up on running 16 awg speaker wire through the doors.
Once I install my amps, I will have to splice into the factory wires. This is less than optimal since the factory 20 awg provides a little more resisitance than I'd like for 100 watts of amplication, but it should shouldn't have much of a noticeable difference in sound quality. I'd be really interested to see how the people that have seperates in the doors managed to get all the wires from the dash to the door.
Ultimately I installed the speakers:
I'm pretty pleased with the way they sound, and will be adding a sub soon. The stock battery terminal is giving me problems figuring out to attach a 1/0 gauge wire terminal, but a little more improvisation should eventually solve the problem......
Hope this helps anybody looking to do a DIY door speaker replacement.