Thetownend.com

anyone done this before? it would appear to be considerably less straifghtforward than my colleague led me to believe...

Why so?

it involves making holes in the parcel shelf, wiring the car from one end to the other and stuff...

Yeah, I was just wondering if you'd got stuck on a particular bit.

I take it you don't have stock rear speakers then?

I'll do it for a couple of pints. All you need is one of those Dremel cutter things, a few spade connectors and a crimping tool.

If you have rear speakers just crimp the new speaker wire onto the old wire and jobs a gooden, thats what i did when i had my 106.

Fitting the sub i had was a pain in the arse though.

easy as piss! if you are a real man you should be able to do it!

My first car was a sound system banger, 18 yeard ford feista with vinyal seats. In the boot had a massive sub woofer, 2000 watt amp 5.1 surround sound, front mounted 6 by 9 tweaters, and two 12 inch rear mounted speakers for the midrange! fucking ace car only went 50mph but fuck me it could make you deaf when everything was working and turned up loud the back window used to flex and the whole car would rattle ha ha ha ha ha such a fucking chav.

How so? Did you not have an amp?

Yeah it had an amp mate, it was a bastard finding an entry point for the wire from the battery throguh to the boot if that makes sense...

Should have just drilled through the bulkhead and stuck a rubber gromit in.

Doesnt matter now, wrote the car off in the end and the sub was fucked

or just stick it thourgh the rust!

i haven't started yet, was getting dark and decided trying to fit them in the dark would be a little difficult.

there are rear speakers, though i couldn't find them easily (it was darkish). they're definitely not on the parcel shelf though, so i assume i'll need to completely rebuild that? it's a fairly flimsy piece of 'wood' and the speakers are obviously heavy

are the speakers in the rear quarter panel sonic?

that means nothing to me. (oh vienna)

i think they're probably either side of the parcel shelf mounted underneath

thats where i mean, in the side panel under the window?

aye

they shouldnt be that hard to get out, youll probably only need a philips screwdriver

well i've got saturday to piss about with it...if anyone is free and fancies giving me a hand with it, i will provide a six pack of your chosen beer.
 
of course this is only if i can't do it myself :)

i found it pretty easy to mine when i had a car, though it was quite an untidy looking job i did on the parcel shelf. i drew a rough template and just hacked right through it with the sharpest object i could find in my dads toolbag. wiring the speakers was just like a home stereo, and my festa hid the cables completely with its shoddy build.

my rear speakers are either side of the rear passenger seat, inside the "door" (it's a 3 door hatchback)...i'm hoping the wire will be long enough to lead it under the seat and up behind it into the shelf. if not, how easy will it be to extend the wire?

i've cut the holes in the parcel shelf with a stanley knife. it's made of fibreglass and now i'm covered in it

If you crimp the wires to the existing speakers you won't need to run them to the head unit.

If you do need to run them to the head then there should be ample wire supplied with the speakers. Best route is normally around the passenger side under the carpet, up into the footwell and then into the stereo.

well, the rear speakers that are existing are connected, so i would be able to use those i presume?

Yep. If you can get to them then you'll see the wire for them connected on the underside of the speaker by one of these:

[url width=482 height=500]http://www.dclinearactuators.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/spade-connectors-female.jpg[/url]

Just twist around 10cm of speaker wire (exposed, obviously) around the exposed part of the spade.

If it happens that your speaker wire is soldered on the just wrap it around the soldered part.

But make sure you insulate it afterwards with a small amount of insulation tape if you have any bare metal on the joint/connection as a short circuit to the inside of the car body shell will blow a fuse in the head unit mate.

thanks gents. i've fitted speakers before, just refreshing my memory.

right.

i've now got some spades and speaker wire. not only can i not work out how to attach the spades to the speakers, how do i connect it to the head unit? the head unit has two phono jacks labelled SW/REAR, one left and one right. i assume that i run the speaker wire i now have from these jacks to the speakers...

how the fuck do i connect them?

i'm rubbish at this and halfords keep giving me false information

Get someone to do it for you and buy them a few beers.

I've never used the phono jacks before. On the black connector that goes into the back of the head unit there should be some empty blocks to put speaker wire into.

As for the spade connectors, there should be a male part on the bottom of the speaker that plugs into the female spade connectors.

yes, i'll just call one of my multitude of friends who live nearby.

oh, wait...

Does the stereo not have the ISO connector on the back of it SY?

Usually you dont need to bother with the RCA or Phono leads and just plug the ISO lead into the head unit....it does have an ISO lead I take it?

aha, now i see - so the iso connector block has spare sockets to plug in a spade for each speaker?

i.e. one of these...

[url width=450 height=379]http://www.justkenwood.co.uk/images/iso_loom.jpg[/url]

this is without doubt the most irritating thing i've ever done. if anyone fancies fitting them for me today, your reward is steak and chips, beer and a negotiable fee. otherwise i'm going to end up breaking something.

as you unplug the old stereo it SHOULD have the Male ISO connector on the end of the leads already, just unclip it and plug the connector into the new stereo female ISO connector, should be a very straightforward swap mate, old one out new one in with no other messing with cables at all behind the stereo.

oh, the stereo is fine - i did that easily once i used a tool i made myself to remove the old one. it's connecting the speakers now

ah, then the wires are already in place, its just a case of removing the old wires behind the speakers...splicing in the new part of wire between the old speakers and the new 6x9's routing the wires round the floor to the boot...then attaching the wires to the speakers in the boot.

dont put a whole new length of wire in from the head unit...just connect up the wires from the speaker connectors that you already have to the new length of cable going into the boot.....I am not sure if this makes sence or if I have the right end of the piece of string!

the existing rear speakers are located by the rear passenger seats, so won't reach to the parcel shelf. they're also connected using some plug, looks a bit like a molex.

im uploading some pics...i'm sat in my car with my macbook, gladi'm in the middle of nowhere

[url width=900 height=675]http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/jehst/27092008172.jpg[/url]

[url width=900 height=675]http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/jehst/27092008173.jpg[/url]

[url width=900 height=675]http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/jehst/27092008174.jpg[/url]

[url width=900 height=675]http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/jehst/27092008175.jpg[/url]

Go for it mate, I am sure the best way is to remove the connector itself (molex type) as it will probably only have 2 wires going into it.....strip back a little wire from each cable and then connect up the new bit of wire going to the boot....about 6 foot or so, I have in the past often just entwined the wires together and wrapped them in insulation tape, as long as they are firmly twined together and not under any stress this is not a problem....then put the spade connector on the end in the boot to connect up to the new speakers (when in place)

you can hard wire in the cable the length of the car from the wires going into the head unit if you prefer.

The rear speakers are the outside pair on each side of the speaker plug.....the speaker plug is the connector with the small clip on the centre of the conector....the power connector being the connector with the offset plug on the side.

the layout of the pins will be 4 top and 4 bottom like this....

-------
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
-------

with the clip on the right hand side as you look at it.......the rear left is plug 1+5 and rear right is plug 4+8

Here is an example....
h**p://www.davidsonelectronics.co.uk/pinouts.htm

Hope this helps.

you don't need to take out the t's in http jj, posting links to a website is not a problem unless it is for downloads etc.

Ah cheers for that axs, was playing safe after the warning yesterday :)

I've only just noticed your subtitle too. very nice!

:)

i've given up.

If at first you don't succeed, fuck it.

I get the feeling you've over complicated sonic. All you need to do is splice the cables, don't worry about your head unit.

Yeah thats how I think I see it too Si.....slice the cables at the speaker end of the cable and extend it to the boot.

okay, i've now cut the wire for the existing rear speakers and attempted to splice it with the new speaker wire and hook it upto the speaker.

it didn't work. it's likely i didn't do it right.

so now i'm out of pocket, with less speakers than i began with, a parcel shelf with two big holes in and now when i close my boot the speakers fall out of the parcel shelf.

thanks for your advice anyway.

If you get to the Oasis a bit earlier on Tuesday I can have a look for you if you like?

in the dark? :)

i'm hoping one of my colleagues will be able to fit them, if not i'll let you know - i'm not touching them myself again because i'm going to break them at this rate

Bring a torch.