i gotta hear someone's "SQ" system...

 

I'll be down in that area on my way to Homecoming II in Sept...

Baton Rouge to OKC to Abilene visiting friends/family in the area. I could, perhaps, be persuaded to swing through Denton on my way from OKC to Abilene (usually do 44 down, but via Dallas doesn't add that much time)...

 

nice, let me know when it gets closer hopefully it doesn't make me change all my stuff lol

 

For the guys looking into purchasing BM MkIII's:

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/indust...html#post923006

Nick's doing a group-buy discount for pre-orders. $175+shipping if you sign up now.

Those of you from here that get on this list, shoot me a PM and maybe we can work out a deal for a fiberglass enclosure once I get a mold done.

 

Dam i might buy one just to get it that cheap

 

Ok, a little progress yesterday and today... some forward, and some backward, but all progress I guess...

Also, driving around with no door panels annoyed me, so I decided I will never own a Lotus Elise as an only car / commuter, and I decided I'd try to get the tweeters and doors to stop rattling and making noise.

YESTERDAY'S PROGRESS

First I did the easy thing and used double sided tape to fix the tweeters. If I don't like it, it's a poor adhesive so it will come right off. (Actually, if I do like it, it will still probably come off in a few months...)

Clipping them together


And then double sided tape on the bottom with the wires routed as shown before. I might drill them eventually, but I'm leaning towards adhesive--better quality of course--as a permanent mount due to reversibility.


Took this picture for you, NS. We'll get back to this one, as you now expect...


Now that the tweeters aren't rolling around whenever I turn, accelerate, or brake, I could try to get the speakers done so I could put the door panels back in.

I first needed to run the wire through the grommet. I had a "fishing" wire or coil, I forget what exactly they called it. I got it at Ace for about 20 bucks. Money well spent. I also got wire lube. 6 bucks for a huge thing of it, like a liter or so. I used very very little, but it was also well worth the money.

After taking off the panel on the passenger side, I had this big ugly piece of foam in the way. I pulled it out.


Here's the "fishing" coil going in the door. There is a sharp metal piece in there that you can cut your hand on, so be a little cautious until you find it. I could feel a rubber grommet and put the end of the coil into it, then pushed. I had to reroute it wherever it hit sheet metal, and (I couldn't get good pictures of the other end) then I felt it pushing on the rubber grommet that was behind the foam chunk I removed. It's easy to feel since the coil is pretty stiff metal.



Once I felt where it was, I managed to take a box cutter blade between my pointer and index fingers and slice the rubber. I had slight worries about getting cut, but no harm no foul I guess. OSHA wasn't in the garage to stop me. The coil then penetrated through. I lined up the coil with the wire and put electrical tape around it, then wire lube dribbled on the tape and up the coil about 4-5 inches ahead. (I took a picture of the lube on the drivers side; it's ahead a few photos.)



With everything lubed, I just pulled on the coil. Not even hard. It just came right out like I hoped. Wonderful.



At this point, my wife got home. Her day had been pretty miserable, so I slapped the speaker in the door without wiring it and called it a night.




TODAY'S PROGRESS

Ok, so I still never got the door panels back on, and at this point (I have a ~40 minute one way commute) it's started to annoy me that my car feels like a tin can, so I wanted to get the other speaker in, wired, and put the panels back on. First thing I did was to splice the wire, connect the speaker to it (of course the other end is dead at my floorboard), and put it in the door.



Well, it didn't fit. This was a surprise to me, not because the length wasn't intimidating, but because I had seen this thread:
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/diyma-...-some-love.html

And very clearly, he had gotten it to work.
Well... I didn't. It struck. I couldn't get the door panel to clip because there is a frame on the panel that interfered with the exterior of the surround. It didn't strike the woofer at all--it was the metal around it that was interfering--but I wondered if at max excursion I would have issues with the speaker itself.

So now I am back to a jigsaw-cut-to-shape 3/4" MDF spacer with a follow-on spraypaint and/or epoxy coating to keep the wood from swelling. Which is something I am not going to do tonight.

I decided to wire the other woofer, pull both speakers, and clip the door panels into place (but not bolt them).

I noticed that many many wires run down the drivers' side:



I thought the panel was a bit of a pain to get off--a clip wanted to bend its head instead of come out. The fuse box area was really a mess of wires. I had another foam block to pull, and it was buried in a rats nest.


I ended up unclipping one clip and snapping another by accident, which left me enough room to work the foam piece out.



Now I did the same thing as last time--slipped the coil through and cut the grommet.



Here's a picture of the amount of lube I applied. It slipped through effortlessly.



I trimmed the wires and slapped the door panels into place. That's all for tonight. I need to make the spacers and throw the speakers in, run the power wire, and then run the speaker wires to the amp and probably reroute the RCAs to the same path before I have sound.

 

I asked about the spacers b/c I knew it was going to be too deep for the panels.

Running 3/4" of spacer requires no mods to the door panel.

Running 1" of spacer requires the back of the grill to be shaved (all the ridges left from the molding process).

Anything over 1" wont' fit.

 

Yeah, it made me think a bit when you asked--I was 90% sure that was what you were alluding to. But since I had seen that other thread, I didn't do my due diligence before going to town with the dremel. I just comforted myself with that picture when I should have comforted myself with a tape measure too.

I'm still wondering how that guy could get it to fit while I couldn't--there must have been some unmentioned step. But what, cut the stupid thing in half with a circular saw? ... But I already have a jigsaw, MDF, etc, so no real loss except a bit of time and a few cheap pieces of plastic. C'est la vie.

 

Also, I've already decided I pretty much hate having the tweeters sitting in space under the windshield.

I am thinking to relocate them to the doors. I would put them either:

1. At the top of the doors at the front, right next to the tall black piece of weatherstripping.
2. Using (black painted) plumber's tape, right in front of the door locks.

For option 1, I'd just tape it in for a while and then decide on whether/what to do as a permanent solution. I saw a recent thread where a member made fiberglass tweeter pods and placed them there. I've searched for over an hour now and still can't manage to find it... anybody know where that thread is?

I'm starting to think option 2 would look better though.... hmm... I probably will need to run speaker wire for the tweeters through the doors in any case.

 

With as much attention to detail you've already invested, I am surprised you are still entertaining the use of your tweeters. They will look sloppy no matter where they are placed.