Posted this over at a car forum, but figured this info is useful for anyone. Lots of people here with cars, so if you ever want to change the speakers for your doors and don't think you've got enough room, here's an easy way to make adapters. The technique is the same for any car, you're just gonna have to make sure you have enough space to the door panel.
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Car: 01 Toyota MR2 Spyder (roughly 2" of depth in the doors)
Speakers installed: Crystal CSc60s woofers only
Top-mount depth: 2-3/4"
Basically, about as big a 6.5-6.75" speaker as you're likely to find. There are some 3" mounting depth speakers, but those are rare.
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Well, a while back, I went ahead and badmouthed the Kappas for being overrated. :lol: Yeah, lots of bravado, but apparently these are easy drop in swap. They're 2 3/16" and probably about the same depth as the stock speakers when you factor in the stock mounting bracket. That's the thing though, the stock mounting brack is a 3/4" spacer. So the stock speaker has plenty of room to the window when it's retracted. You drop in a Kappa woofer flush with the door, and it's probably pretty close to the glass. So, how do you compensate for the 3/4" spacer? With 3/4" MDF.
This job is easy and requires only marginal woodworking skills.
You'll need:
3/4" MDF, jig saw, power drill, pencil and one of the stock speakers
It'll also help to have some sanding tools, vice, clamps. The jig saw could probably be swapped for a hacksaw, but unless you got a course blade on there, you're just as good going at it with your teeth. MDF is not hacksaw-friendly AFAIK.
Anyway, here are the steps I used to making these. I did 'em on a whim today since the bowl games haven't been going my way. I'm a Gators fan, so you can imagine.
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Step 1:
Get some 3/4" MDF from Home Depot or something. You could get by with a 2x2 piece easily. Take the stock speaker out of the door (still in its bracket) and place it on top of the MDF like in the pic. Trace the outside with a pencil. Try to get it close, b/c you're gonna be eyeballing it. Once you do that, you've got the outline, so you want to do like I did and identify the top and bottom, and draw an arrow on it so you can see. This way you can line everything up like how you want it in the car. Next, draw the circle that you need to cut. This will be smaller than the outer frame of your speakers. I used the plastic adapters that came with the speakers as a guide and traced the inside of that. Notice how I have the circles positioned near the "bottom" of the frame (look at the arrows I drew on there). The lower in the frame, the more space there is to work with in front of the retracted window. If you can, now would be a perfect time to line up the three mounting holes for the stock mounting positions in the doors. We're gonna use those same ones and the same screws too. OK, drawing board is over, double-check everything.
Step 2:
Time to cut. Note, I went ahead and labeled the "driver" and "passenger" side adapters at this point. I did so in order to stay focused on one bracket first (passenger). That way, if I screwed one up, I could correct it for the other. Anyway, this might be impossible with a hacksaw, so first drill out a cavity for you to fit the jigsaw blade into. I did this by taking the biggest bit I had, and drilling two holes right next to each other, then "widening" the gap so I could fit the jig saw in. I then just went ahead and fired up the saw and carefully cut out the inner circles. I tried to stay inside the lines, b/c widening a narrow opening is easier than closing a too-wide opening. You're gonna cut up your arrows if you're an idiot like me, so you could also throw on labels like "top" and "bottom" to keep you oriented properly for each bracket. I sanded down the insides of the brackets at this point before test-fitting the speakers.
Step 3:
Next, I dropped the woofer into each bracket to test the fit of the holes. I'd done these same speakers a couple of years ago, so I got the fit down perfect. The plastic adapters were the perfect guide. You don't need them too tight, you want to make sure you can get the wires to the contacts properly. Anyway, this step involves first lining up the screw holes. You can have the holes at angles or in a cross. I went with angles, so a screw hole at 45 degrees from horizontal in each direction. Once lined up, use a pencil to mark the locations of the holes, and then trace a circle around the outside of the speaker frame. If you look at the left bracket, you can see the outline I traced. I didn't put the marks for the holes yet. The reason we're doing this is to see how much fat we can trim. Look at how much excess material the stock adapters use. Worthless. We're not gonna use it either.
Step 4:
Now, you can see the final outlines. I am gonna trim the excess down to just the ring I traced around the speaker, and the three "TABS" that are pretty clear on there. Be generous with the TAB material, b/c it'll be easier to shed the excess later, but if they're too small to begin with, you're got a piece of scrap wood. Go ahead and drill ALL holes at this point too. I drilled the holes for the speaker, but not on the three tabs b/c I was having difficulty locating the holes properly. I'd strongly recommend getting those holes lined up at this point and drilling all holes before the final cut. But you don't have to. I'm gonna take a jig saw to these two brackets now, just tracing along the outside of the outlines I've drawn. Again, I try to stay outside the lines, b/c removing excess is easier than adding material.
Step 5:
Brackets are cut and ready for the final stages of polish. As you can see, you really only see the tabs sticking out. However, these tabs are still 3/4" think. The stock screws are significantly shorter than that, 1/2" maybe...MAYBE? So we've got two options. Option A is to get the same size screw from a hardware screw, but get it longer, about 1/2-5/8" longer *rough guesstimate* OR. Option B has us cut each tab down to a thinner profile. How you approach this is up to you. You really only need to cut down the holes for the screws, b/c I'm certain that the rest of the tab should still fit easily behind the door panel. But I went ahead and sanded down the entire tab using a rotary tool and a wheel sander. It took about 40 minutes with proper cooling for the wheel, and lots of inhaled sawdust later, I had all the tabs sanded down to just a pinch under 1/4" thick. I eyeballed it with some tape measure. The wood is still quite sturdy, yet I can fit the stock screws into the threads no problem. Here's what it looked like sanded down:
Sorry, all my good ideas come late in the afternoon with bad lighting. :lol:
Anyway, that's pretty much it. You take them out to the car and mount them with pride, knowing you don't need to pay some high school flunky a lot of money to an easy job. I'll post the installed pics in my next post. Oh yeah, don't forget to seal the MDF with polyurethane or some other wood sealer. I didn't do it on my Corolla, and the wood was swollen and rotted after just two years. I still have to treat these, but it's not really important since it's a temporary job anyway. PEACE.
---
Car: 01 Toyota MR2 Spyder (roughly 2" of depth in the doors)
Speakers installed: Crystal CSc60s woofers only
Top-mount depth: 2-3/4"
Basically, about as big a 6.5-6.75" speaker as you're likely to find. There are some 3" mounting depth speakers, but those are rare.
---
Well, a while back, I went ahead and badmouthed the Kappas for being overrated. :lol: Yeah, lots of bravado, but apparently these are easy drop in swap. They're 2 3/16" and probably about the same depth as the stock speakers when you factor in the stock mounting bracket. That's the thing though, the stock mounting brack is a 3/4" spacer. So the stock speaker has plenty of room to the window when it's retracted. You drop in a Kappa woofer flush with the door, and it's probably pretty close to the glass. So, how do you compensate for the 3/4" spacer? With 3/4" MDF.
This job is easy and requires only marginal woodworking skills. You'll need:
3/4" MDF, jig saw, power drill, pencil and one of the stock speakers
It'll also help to have some sanding tools, vice, clamps. The jig saw could probably be swapped for a hacksaw, but unless you got a course blade on there, you're just as good going at it with your teeth. MDF is not hacksaw-friendly AFAIK.
Anyway, here are the steps I used to making these. I did 'em on a whim today since the bowl games haven't been going my way. I'm a Gators fan, so you can imagine.
---
Step 1:
Get some 3/4" MDF from Home Depot or something. You could get by with a 2x2 piece easily. Take the stock speaker out of the door (still in its bracket) and place it on top of the MDF like in the pic. Trace the outside with a pencil. Try to get it close, b/c you're gonna be eyeballing it. Once you do that, you've got the outline, so you want to do like I did and identify the top and bottom, and draw an arrow on it so you can see. This way you can line everything up like how you want it in the car. Next, draw the circle that you need to cut. This will be smaller than the outer frame of your speakers. I used the plastic adapters that came with the speakers as a guide and traced the inside of that. Notice how I have the circles positioned near the "bottom" of the frame (look at the arrows I drew on there). The lower in the frame, the more space there is to work with in front of the retracted window. If you can, now would be a perfect time to line up the three mounting holes for the stock mounting positions in the doors. We're gonna use those same ones and the same screws too. OK, drawing board is over, double-check everything.
Step 2:
Time to cut. Note, I went ahead and labeled the "driver" and "passenger" side adapters at this point. I did so in order to stay focused on one bracket first (passenger). That way, if I screwed one up, I could correct it for the other. Anyway, this might be impossible with a hacksaw, so first drill out a cavity for you to fit the jigsaw blade into. I did this by taking the biggest bit I had, and drilling two holes right next to each other, then "widening" the gap so I could fit the jig saw in. I then just went ahead and fired up the saw and carefully cut out the inner circles. I tried to stay inside the lines, b/c widening a narrow opening is easier than closing a too-wide opening. You're gonna cut up your arrows if you're an idiot like me, so you could also throw on labels like "top" and "bottom" to keep you oriented properly for each bracket. I sanded down the insides of the brackets at this point before test-fitting the speakers.
Step 3:
Next, I dropped the woofer into each bracket to test the fit of the holes. I'd done these same speakers a couple of years ago, so I got the fit down perfect. The plastic adapters were the perfect guide. You don't need them too tight, you want to make sure you can get the wires to the contacts properly. Anyway, this step involves first lining up the screw holes. You can have the holes at angles or in a cross. I went with angles, so a screw hole at 45 degrees from horizontal in each direction. Once lined up, use a pencil to mark the locations of the holes, and then trace a circle around the outside of the speaker frame. If you look at the left bracket, you can see the outline I traced. I didn't put the marks for the holes yet. The reason we're doing this is to see how much fat we can trim. Look at how much excess material the stock adapters use. Worthless. We're not gonna use it either.
Step 4:
Now, you can see the final outlines. I am gonna trim the excess down to just the ring I traced around the speaker, and the three "TABS" that are pretty clear on there. Be generous with the TAB material, b/c it'll be easier to shed the excess later, but if they're too small to begin with, you're got a piece of scrap wood.
Go ahead and drill ALL holes at this point too. I drilled the holes for the speaker, but not on the three tabs b/c I was having difficulty locating the holes properly. I'd strongly recommend getting those holes lined up at this point and drilling all holes before the final cut. But you don't have to. I'm gonna take a jig saw to these two brackets now, just tracing along the outside of the outlines I've drawn. Again, I try to stay outside the lines, b/c removing excess is easier than adding material.Step 5:
Brackets are cut and ready for the final stages of polish. As you can see, you really only see the tabs sticking out. However, these tabs are still 3/4" think. The stock screws are significantly shorter than that, 1/2" maybe...MAYBE?
So we've got two options. Option A is to get the same size screw from a hardware screw, but get it longer, about 1/2-5/8" longer *rough guesstimate* OR. Option B has us cut each tab down to a thinner profile. How you approach this is up to you. You really only need to cut down the holes for the screws, b/c I'm certain that the rest of the tab should still fit easily behind the door panel. But I went ahead and sanded down the entire tab using a rotary tool and a wheel sander. It took about 40 minutes with proper cooling for the wheel, and lots of inhaled sawdust later, I had all the tabs sanded down to just a pinch under 1/4" thick. I eyeballed it with some tape measure. The wood is still quite sturdy, yet I can fit the stock screws into the threads no problem. Here's what it looked like sanded down:
Sorry, all my good ideas come late in the afternoon with bad lighting. :lol:
Anyway, that's pretty much it. You take them out to the car and mount them with pride, knowing you don't need to pay some high school flunky a lot of money to an easy job. I'll post the installed pics in my next post. Oh yeah, don't forget to seal the MDF with polyurethane or some other wood sealer. I didn't do it on my Corolla, and the wood was swollen and rotted after just two years. I still have to treat these, but it's not really important since it's a temporary job anyway. PEACE.
