Choices of speakers

[Jonathan]

So these arrived today...

Martin,

Have you tried to put these in yet?

I have them installed on my car. There were no changes needed for the wiring connections, but physically getting them attached to the threaded posts on the underside of the dash was challenging. I could not get the tabs to bend the way they needed to on this particular set of speakers. I ended up making a set of small brackets out of some odds and ends from the hardware store's fasteners department. You can also use the threaded extensions as mentioned here if you can get your hands on some.

[MML]

There were no changes needed for the wiring connections, but physically getting them attached to the threaded posts on the underside of the dash was challenging.

Oh man. Tell me about it. I've spent way too long trying to get the nuts on to the studs. It took a couple of hours yesterday to get the driver's side one in. I spent so long upside down under the dash, I thought I would need a chiropractor! Access is a total nightmare, you don't have much room to work.
I started the passenger side tonight, the old speaker was easy to remove... getting the new one in is another story! I have one nut on, the other isn't playing ball at all. Every time you try to line up the nut it flies towards the speaker magnet,

As for bending the lugs, I did it with pliers - lining the holes up to the Craig's lugs was the important thing. As Dave said above the tweeter sticks out further than the original, so be careful not to push out the dash.

Another thing I did was cut off the old connectors - they slid off the terminals very easily. I just soldered on the new ones that came in the box, they clip on way more tightly.

[Notifier]

Oh man. Tell me about it. I've spent way too long trying to get the nuts on to the studs. It took a couple of hours yesterday to get the driver's side one in. I spent so long upside down under the dash, I thought I would need a chiropractor! Access is a total nightmare, you don't have much room to work.
I started the passenger side tonight, the old speaker was easy to remove... getting the new one in is another story! I have one nut on, the other isn't playing ball at all. Every time you try to line up the nut it flies towards the speaker magnet,

As for bending the lugs, I did it with pliers - lining the holes up to the Craig's lugs was the important thing. As Dave said above the tweeter sticks out further than the original, so be careful not to push out the dash.

Another thing I did was cut off the old connectors - they slid off the terminals very easily. I just soldered on the new ones that came in the box, they clip on way more tightly.

You guys are trying to hard! Use a socket with an extension, it will help out a lot. Better than getting your fingers all jammed up in there. When you do the passenger side, take the glove box out. At least it will give you a second angle to work with. Also, when I did mine, I had the seats out. It was because I was running new wiring for the rear speakers and other audio equipment I was putting in, but it seemed to really help out with getting your body in the right angle to get in there. The bonus was I could clean out 30 years worth of dirt and grime from under them.

I don't know, when I replaced my front speakers I was anticipating a long, tough job. But it went rather smoothly. Maybe I just got lucky!

[alexwolf1216]

You guys are trying to hard! Use a socket with an extension, it will help out a lot. Better than getting your fingers all jammed up in there. When you do the passenger side, take the glove box out. At least it will give you a second angle to work with. Also, when I did mine, I had the seats out. It was because I was running new wiring for the rear speakers and other audio equipment I was putting in, but it seemed to really help out with getting your body in the right angle to get in there. The bonus was I could clean out 30 years worth of dirt and grime from under them.

I don't know, when I replaced my front speakers I was anticipating a long, tough job. But it went rather smoothly. Maybe I just got lucky!

Notifier hooked me up with a set of extension nuts and some screws. I had all of the kneeepads out as well as the glove box. I screwed on the extensions, used one hand to hold the speaker up, used a magnetic screwdriver to put one screw in. This held the speaker in place enough to do the other side. I had to add a couple of washers to make the passenger side tight, but once I figured it out both were installed in roughly 10 minutes. Both seats were in, and that sucked......shoulda removed them.

[nkemp]

Oh man. Tell me about it. I've spent way too long trying to get the nuts on to the studs. It took a couple of hours yesterday to get the driver's side one in. I spent so long upside down under the dash, I thought I would need a chiropractor! Access is a total nightmare, you don't have much room to work.

OK ... so you are done ... but for anyone doing this in the future (yes... being a time machine it is possible to do this in the past get some circuit board extensions instead of using nuts. You'll be doing in minutes what others take hours to do.

More details here: http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?81...ment-made-easy

How did they do this in the factory??? They used Lepricons/leprechauns.

[dmruschell]

OK ... so you are done ... but for anyone doing this in the future (yes... being a time machine it is possible to do this in the past get some circuit board extensions instead of using nuts. You'll be doing in minutes what others take hours to do.

More details here: http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?81...ment-made-easy

How did they do this in the factory??? They used Lepricons/leprechauns.

Another option is to just mount them to the fiberglass. Drill 2 holes, and screw in two screws. I originally bent the speaker tabs and installed them using the original nuts with pliers (the socket wouldn't reach up far enough because the speaker itself got in the way). When one of those speakers took a dump, I mounted the replacements on the fiberglass. It was much easier.

[MML]

Well I got the little feckers in... what a tricky job that was. Even with a socket extension, the nuts were hard to get in. The lugs needed a lot of fiddling with so they lined up and still had enough clearance to fit the socket in.
I tried several local places for coupling nuts but nowhere had any. Rather than wait several days if I ordered online, I just went back to it (out of stubbornness mostly!) and eventually got the nuts in place.

As for removing the glovebox, that wasn't an option I wanted to explore - my glovebox is a DMCH repro, as you know it's made of fibreglass and is a lot thicker than the original, and thus harder to fit; it was actually very hard to squeeze into place. It would be more trouble than it's worth to try removing it again!

The old speakers actually look in good shape, turned out the reason one wasn't working was because a wire popped off (it was very loose).

After testing everything I was very impressed with the difference, it was a heck of a lot better than before.

Has anyone got a pic of where the speaker wires terminate inside the dash? It's been a while since I had the radio out so I can't quite remember the layout. I might get around to rewiring it some day.

[NightFlyer]

The old speakers actually look in good shape, turned out the reason one wasn't working was because a wire popped off (it was very loose).

Those do look to be in very good shape.

As to the speaker wires, they terminate in the radio's harness plug.

[wtbstuff]

Is the ks410 the same as the KS4100? Sorry I don't know much about speakers. Is one better then the other?

thanks
Jay
1505

[DMCMW Dave]

Is the ks410 the same as the KS4100? Sorry I don't know much about speakers. Is one better then the other?

thanks
Jay
1505

One is a newer version of the other. They fit the same, i.e. the tweeter sticks out but you can work around that.