Removing Door Panels for Speaker Installation
Guest
Posts: n/a
Removing Door Panels for Speaker Installation
Thank you all for helping me thus far in putting in my car stereo. I just wanted to know if anyone can provided detaild instructions on removing the door panels without breaking anything.
How many screws ar there, where are they located, do I need a clip removal tool for any clips that hold the panel in place?
Also, is there any drilling neccesary into the door panel? Can I buy something at Home Depot that can hold the 6 1/5 in the front and use as spacers?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
How many screws ar there, where are they located, do I need a clip removal tool for any clips that hold the panel in place?
Also, is there any drilling neccesary into the door panel? Can I buy something at Home Depot that can hold the 6 1/5 in the front and use as spacers?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Registered User
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 1,537
From: AFK
Car Info: 04' JBP STi 02' WRB Wagon
This should help you
Speaker Install Guide
As for the spacer, depending on how deep the mounting depth for your speakers are, you may have to go up to 3/4" thick MDF. If you have a friend with the stock speakers, you can see if he/she will let you borrow a speaker to make a template out of.
If that doesn't work, i suppose you can always eyeball/testfit it for awhile until it fits, as there are some contours in the door that might block a spacer with thick edges. There is absolutely no drilling necessary for the car, just the spacer for the screw holes.
The door handle bezel is the trickiest part, i totally messed my passenger door up, so i have no idea what tips i can give you on that one.
Speaker Install Guide
As for the spacer, depending on how deep the mounting depth for your speakers are, you may have to go up to 3/4" thick MDF. If you have a friend with the stock speakers, you can see if he/she will let you borrow a speaker to make a template out of.
If that doesn't work, i suppose you can always eyeball/testfit it for awhile until it fits, as there are some contours in the door that might block a spacer with thick edges. There is absolutely no drilling necessary for the car, just the spacer for the screw holes.
The door handle bezel is the trickiest part, i totally messed my passenger door up, so i have no idea what tips i can give you on that one.
Last edited by Seraph; Aug 9, 2003 at 09:49 AM.
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Removing Door Panels for Speaker Installation
Originally posted by stifan123
Thank you all for helping me thus far in putting in my car stereo. I just wanted to know if anyone can provided detaild instructions on removing the door panels without breaking anything.
How many screws ar there, where are they located, do I need a clip removal tool for any clips that hold the panel in place?
Also, is there any drilling neccesary into the door panel? Can I buy something at Home Depot that can hold the 6 1/5 in the front and use as spacers?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you all for helping me thus far in putting in my car stereo. I just wanted to know if anyone can provided detaild instructions on removing the door panels without breaking anything.
How many screws ar there, where are they located, do I need a clip removal tool for any clips that hold the panel in place?
Also, is there any drilling neccesary into the door panel? Can I buy something at Home Depot that can hold the 6 1/5 in the front and use as spacers?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Guest
Posts: n/a
I did this install as my first ever car stereo install. Two days and no damage to the vehicle.
Remove the screw under the door handle and the one under the hand-hold in the arm-rest. The door panel is only attached with clips other than that. Just pull the doorpanel straight out around the outside lip on the bottom.
After that is removed, slide the door panel back about an inch, this unseats the doorhandle from the steel in the door. Now you can raise the doorhandle out of the doorpanel by a little bit. Use a slotted screwdriver to gently pry the cover off the 4 clips on the doorhandle. The top two come off real easy, the other one on the rear will pop off with slight prying and the bottom one you need to wiggle it a bit and it'll come right off. Now the doorhandle will fall right thru the hole in your doorpanel.
As for the spacer for the front speaker, I went with Infinity 5000 Ref's from Ikesound.com. I used a 1/4 inch plastic sheet found at any hardware store, used a drill and jigsaw to make a nice square about the size of the speaker, then cut a nasty looking circle in the middle. I used a speaker baffle and about 6 layers of 2mm art-foam sheets found at hobby lobby for 79 cents each sheet. I just cut the same square with a circle in the middle. I crammed these 'shims' around the outside of the speaker baffle to provide the spacing needed to enable window roll-down.
I used zip-ties to make a basket to keep the baffle off the window. I closed one and used that as the 'bottom' of the basket. Then used four others to attach it on the four corners to the plastic mounting plate I bolted to the door steel. This worked pretty well, you can check your progress by rolling down your window (make sure to use short screws so you don't hit the window with them...) and looking down from the top w/out the door panel on. You can see if the window is hitting the speaker baffle.
As for mounting the component tweeter, the hole in the door-panel is about 2 inches towards the front of the car from the doorhandle. I used the flat-mount basket for the tweeter and used a taper-head sheetmetal screw and a handy drill to make a pilot-hole. To line up the tweeter with the hole, there is a rise in the doormetal about 2 inches in front of the doorhandle (which you should re-mount and attach with screw right after you remove doorpanel) and I mounted the basket so it was sideways across this rise in the metal, giving it about a 15 degree angle in and looking with flashlight, the tweeter nicely fills the entire hole in the doorpanel.
Good luck, I hope this works for you! Way cheaper than ruining a doorpanel or door hardware.
Remove the screw under the door handle and the one under the hand-hold in the arm-rest. The door panel is only attached with clips other than that. Just pull the doorpanel straight out around the outside lip on the bottom.
After that is removed, slide the door panel back about an inch, this unseats the doorhandle from the steel in the door. Now you can raise the doorhandle out of the doorpanel by a little bit. Use a slotted screwdriver to gently pry the cover off the 4 clips on the doorhandle. The top two come off real easy, the other one on the rear will pop off with slight prying and the bottom one you need to wiggle it a bit and it'll come right off. Now the doorhandle will fall right thru the hole in your doorpanel.
As for the spacer for the front speaker, I went with Infinity 5000 Ref's from Ikesound.com. I used a 1/4 inch plastic sheet found at any hardware store, used a drill and jigsaw to make a nice square about the size of the speaker, then cut a nasty looking circle in the middle. I used a speaker baffle and about 6 layers of 2mm art-foam sheets found at hobby lobby for 79 cents each sheet. I just cut the same square with a circle in the middle. I crammed these 'shims' around the outside of the speaker baffle to provide the spacing needed to enable window roll-down.
I used zip-ties to make a basket to keep the baffle off the window. I closed one and used that as the 'bottom' of the basket. Then used four others to attach it on the four corners to the plastic mounting plate I bolted to the door steel. This worked pretty well, you can check your progress by rolling down your window (make sure to use short screws so you don't hit the window with them...) and looking down from the top w/out the door panel on. You can see if the window is hitting the speaker baffle.
As for mounting the component tweeter, the hole in the door-panel is about 2 inches towards the front of the car from the doorhandle. I used the flat-mount basket for the tweeter and used a taper-head sheetmetal screw and a handy drill to make a pilot-hole. To line up the tweeter with the hole, there is a rise in the doormetal about 2 inches in front of the doorhandle (which you should re-mount and attach with screw right after you remove doorpanel) and I mounted the basket so it was sideways across this rise in the metal, giving it about a 15 degree angle in and looking with flashlight, the tweeter nicely fills the entire hole in the doorpanel.
Good luck, I hope this works for you! Way cheaper than ruining a doorpanel or door hardware.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
aboothman
NorCal Classifieds
0
Sep 15, 2011 04:37 PM