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keyword: speaker speakers dash replacing

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Remove Dash Speakers...

Passenger Side:

1) Remove contents from glove box. Open glove box door fully, by depressing

the sides of the glove box. The door stops will clear the sides of the

door opening.

2) Remove screw connecting air heating vent to dash.

3) Remove air heating duct.

4) The speaker is now exposed.

5) Remove two nuts that hold the speaker. I used a 1/4" rachet, extension,

and 5/16" deep well socket. Also, the socket and extension will slide

thru the nickel-sized diameter hole in dash support.

6) OEM Speaker is 5 1/4" dual cone -- thin.

 

 

Driver's side:

1) Ask wife to spend the weekend with her family -- take the kids. Patience

is required.

2) Disconnect battery -- good idea when tinkering with wiring harnesses.

No shorts equals no blown fuses.

3) Remove the cowling over the instrument cluster -- four screw -- two

in top -- a screw below each light switch cluster.

4) Disconnect left hand switches from wiring harness.

5) Disconnect right hand switches from wiring harness.

6) Remove screws holding instrument cluster.

7) Disconnect speedometer cable.

8) Disconnect first large white connector from wiring harness. Depress

the taps on each side.

9) Disconnect second large white connector from wiring harness.

Driver's side dash speaker continued:

10) Remove four screws holding fuse box to dash.

11) Carefully, remove panel on left side of dash -- next to door and

above kick panel by prying gently with screwdriver.

12) Loosen two screws on left side of dash.

13) Remove screw connecting air heating vent to dash.

14) Remove air heating duct laying across top of opening for instrument

cluster. Remove screws from step 12, if necessary. Also, the cover of

small vent can be removed by pressing tab on left side. Remove screw,

if necessary.

15) Remove screw that was hidden behind air heating duct that holds air

heating vent -- rear piece -- to dash supports.

16) Slide air heating vent -- rear piece -- towards floor and remove.

17) Remove tab of lever for refresh air on air heating vent.

18) Remove air heating vent -- front piece -- by gently moving vent towards

vacated space from step 16.

19) The speaker is now exposed.

20) Remove two nuts that hold the speaker. I used a 5/16" deep well

socket. Also, one of the nuts is used as fastener to a support bracket

for a small air duct.

21) OEM speaker is 4" dual cone -- very thin -- two tabs. Replacement speaker must be less than 1 7/16" in depth. I used 3 1/2" Pioneer TS-877. However, my fresh air vent whistles when I try to close it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

:P

That's why I didn't change that speaker, yet, no time and patience. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why???????????????????????? they do that?????????????? I suppose they think the speakers will last forever?

Anyway, thanks for the detailed how to do it!!!!!! I'll print it and save for the next fight with wife! LOL.

Regards,

Heron

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  • 1 year later...

woohoo!!!  thanks indy!!!

 

saw them little suckers over just this past weekend when i took the dash to get to the heater core!!!  left them there like you advised, just need to find some use for them now like a cell phone connection or something! :)

 

mango

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...
Ok, I've got a Q. I'm not going to be using the dash speakers anymore, as they're blown all to hell and back, but would like to disconnect them without going through all the hassle of taking apart the dash. Is there any way you can tell me where to clip off the old wires, where they're most accessible, and what color they are? I imagine the easist spot would be right behind the stereo, but what wires do I cut? I put some new Focal's in the doors and that's all I'm going to use. No rears, no dash. The idiot's that installed the door's forgot to disconnect them, so now I hear this nasty distortion everytime I try to turn it up. Thanks, Ryan
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I'm not going to be using the dash speakers anymore, as they're blown all to hell and back, but would like to disconnect them without going through all the hassle of taking apart the dash. Is there any way you can tell me where to clip off the old wires, where they're most accessible, and what color they are? I imagine the easist spot would be right behind the stereo, but what wires do I cut?

 

I believe that you can disconnect the driver's side dash speaker without removing all of the heat/air cond vents and ducts.  You only need to take out the speedometer and gauges.  You may be able to reach the connection by removing the fuse box.  

 

I have bumped my speaker wire colors post to the top.  

 

 

I imagine the easist spot would be right behind the stereo, but what wires do I cut? I put some new Focal's in the doors and that's all I'm going to use. No rears, no dash. The idiot's that installed the door's forgot to disconnect them, so now I hear this nasty distortion everytime I try to turn it up. Thanks, Ryan

 

If you clip the front speaker circuit wires right behind the radio, you will disconnect both the dash and door speakers.  It appears that the person who installed your Focal's ran new wires into both door speakers.  If so, this would work for you.

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  • 2 years later...
16 ) Slide air heating vent -- rear piece -- towards floor and remove.

17 ) Remove tab of lever for refresh air on air heating vent.

18 ) Remove air heating vent -- front piece -- by gently moving vent towards

vacated space from step 16.

edit: DUH DUH DUH DUH i undid the wrong screw in step 13.

13) Remove screw connecting air heating vent to dash.

^ that screw is the one for the face a/c vent to the left of the steering wheel. move the fusebox out of the way and look up through the opening to see the screw attached to the bottom of the vent piece to be moved in step 18. you guys could probably figure that out yourselves in less than a day, but i couldn't so my vent was stuck in place.

by the way, brilliant writeup. i just botched that one step and got frustrated.

Replacement speaker must be less than 1 7/16" in depth.

also remember, this measurement is for the height of the entire speaker. the oem speaker is flat on top and mounts flush to the bottom of the mounting surface, whereas most aftermarket speakers are coaxials which are designed to bolt down to the top of the mounting surface and stick up a little. you have to make a little spacer for them cause the woofer surround puffs up slightly from the top and the tweeter sticks up out of the middle. i bought an infinity 3.5" coaxial (ref 3012cf), which lists the mounting depth as 1 7/16", but it is 1 7/6" from the mounting tab to the bottom of the magnet and then the tweeter sticks up about ½" the other way. so i have to figure out something else to do cause that's the shallowest speaker i could find.

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  • 4 months later...
Thanks for the great post everyone. After reading all this, I decided that I too will simply have the wires to the front dash speakers cut. I'm left to wonder exactly what they were thinking when they designed these, as well as what they were thinking when they decided on an automatic shoulder belt but a manual lap belt.
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  • 3 months later...
how much different does it sound with no music coming from in front of you? I'm all for disconnecting the dash speakers, and putting some good pioneers n the doors and back with a bazooka tube dropped in the hatch. but if its going to sound weird with no sound coming from the front I might just suck it up and try the replacement. any thoughts?
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  • 4 years later...
Yeah 2-3 hours is BS. Second for anyone wanting to do the drivers side speaker, it needs to be less than 1.5" depth and the magnet cant be 3.5 inches around. Tried this and wasted my day. Plus my dash speakers were just fine. So I now have one dash speaker on the passenger side, sounds retarded now.
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anyone manage to find a speaker that actually fits the driver's side? how about the passenger's side? I may just stick some tweeers in there instead.

Passenger side, I fit an Infinity 3.5" reference series in there. Very large magnet and still fits. Drivers side, only thing I think that will fit aside from a 1" tweeter would be the Kicker 3.5" it only has a mounting depth of 1 3/8" or finding some Kicker dash speakers from a 2003-2005 SRT-4. I know those will fit, they are tweeters mounted in a bracket for a 3-4" dash speaker.

 

I ended up setting the drivers side Infinity speaker just below the cluster on a metal support bracket so it makes some sound, but it will be muffled by everything in the dash. Better than nothing I guess. Sounds better than with nothing plugged in at all.

 

Chris.

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  • 5 months later...
This is why I cut the dash speaker wires and run components in the door. Much easier, and better sound IMO.
This as you said, is probably the best move for the SQ.. If someone insists on tweets or mids in the front & don't want to go thru the hassle removing your dash(lol).. put them in an A pillar tweeter pod, that you can paint/upholster.

 

 

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Waste of time and effort replacing speakers in the dash locations. Cut the wires or just pull the connectors. Then put components in the doors like Mark says. I fitted Infinity components, 5-1/4" in the doors, tweeters on the little mirror triangles, sound great.

What I may do next is blend the tweeters into manual adjust triangles I have tucked away so that the tweeters face me more.

Colin B)

Edited by carguygibby
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  • 8 months later...
It all depend on what kind of sound you are looking for and how important it is to you. I fit an ADS 3way component set in my car using 4 inch midrange in the dash 6 1/2 in the door and 1inch tweeter. The passenger side fit was easy but the driver side was not . I had to mod the air vent and had it molded back to keep the air flow. Doing this mod you will have to close the external air inlet permanently. Take the spacer ring off the old factory speaker and use them on your new speaker. There speaker cut out is standard to most 4inch speaker. You will need to also cut the two of the mounting tabs on the speaker to get it to fit. If you are handy it is an easy mod. I must say it took me years to find a good sounding pair of 4inch speaker in to put in the dash. I ended up replacing 3 sets to zero in on this final one. For most I will say it is not worth the headache only to find out you don’t like the sound. Finding the right sounding speaker for the dash makes for an awesome sound stage.
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  • 2 years later...

Think I'm going the tweeter route just put a pair if CDT's in back and CDT don't do a 3.5 so I'll stealth fit a 6 in the doors

Least I don't have to go in there often and the dash needs to come out to check for the usual rust behind center dash

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