Replacing the OEM speakers - help and advice please

[chadr]

Replacing the OEM speakers

The driver's side front speaker packed up recently and I thought I would replace all 4 while I was at it. I purchased some decent new 6.5 inch 2-way speakers off eBay and set about the job today.

After some hassle with the internal door card, I've removed the OEM speaker unit with housing - see pics below;








Upon inspection, my thoughts are to remove the speaker from the housing, mount my new speaker in same and then solder the 2 wires to my new speaker. Then I should be able to refit and use the OEM connecter. Job done.

That all sounds pretty simple, so "what's the problem?" I hear you all say.

Well the Speaker seems to be glued as well as screwed to the housing - I'm reluctant to force/pry it off in case I break the housing. Just wondered what others have done in this situation?

I'm not great with electrickery at the best of times, so I always adhere to the "KISS" principle when it comes to these jobs.

Thanks in advance.

Add: Before anyone says, "It's not working because the wires are disconnected!" - I snipped them off, assuming that the the OEM speaker would simply unscrew off. Yes, I'm bad but not that bad!

 

[chadr]

I may have been a bit premature on this one.....after some work with a hair dryers and a flat blade screwdriver, it seems to be slowly coming off.

I don't know what glue they used but after nearly 20 years, it's still tacky enough to stick my fingers together!

 

[Shayne]

Turps will likely dissolve the glue .

 

[chadr]

Right, speaker replaced and all plugged back in but still no sound from Driver's side front.

So whilst I have managed to replace the speaker, the original problem persists..........

Any ideas on where to look next? - I suppose check whether there is any current coming to it would be a start.

 

[davidsmith1307]

Check resistance from head unit end. I think will be harder to get a decent reading of audio current - it is small and AC.

 

[Sag]

Check the balance and fader setting on your stereo.

 

[chadr]

Thanks.

Yes, Fader and Balance all working OK. I can "isolate" all 4 corners and that is how I came to know it was the driver's side front that wasn't working. The other 3 corners seem fine.

Could it be an issue with the head unit?

 

[Sag]

Could also be a broken wire where it comes through into the door,another way to find out is find the wires at back of stereo to that speaker,remove them and put a AA battery on them and you shoul hear a faint clicking noise,if you do then you know it's the stereo or even put the wires to the other speaker output.

 

[silvercruiser]

Yes im with Sag, Broken wire/s in the rubber boot passing through the door.

 

[chadr]

Well I swapped the other 3 speakers this afternoon - quite a quick job even for me, took about an hour or so.

I bought some middle of the range JVC speakers assuming that they should be at least on par, if not better then the OEM fitment.

I'm quite disappointed that the bass sounds a bit flat and the detail (at least to my ears) doesn't sound as crisp. Perhaps goes to show how good the OEM speakers actually were. Adding insult to injury, the original issue that bought all this about, the driver's side front speaker not working, is still there.

I'll investigate the issue a bit further and hopefully when I've sorted that, might invest in a complete system upgrade headunit & speakers and might add an amp too.



So the moral of the story....unless you are going to replace the OEM speakers with some really good quality ones, I wouldn't bother!

 

[silvercruiser]

I must admit, when i upgraded my headunit i thought the speakers might struggle with the extra power but they cope well.

 

[chadr]

I had already upgraded my headunit about 6-7 years back to a, at the time, higher end JVC unit. The sound was very good.........up until now!!

 

[Shayne]

I hate CD's because i think they are so delicate the manufacturers should be shot or at least taken to the cleaners for selling something not fit for purpose , so i was made up to find a cassette player in my truck when i bought it . I do like my music loud though and the sound quality is not good but i didn't think i had another option until recently when our daughter mentioned she had 2000 tracks on a HDMI card

I'm guessing your into your music Chadr or you wouldn't have gone to so much trouble with your speakers so i wonder if you can tell me if its possible to replace the stereo with just a card reader ? A card slot with an on/off volume button and nothing else sounds great to me .

 

[silvercruiser]

just put it on a usb Stick shayne. then get a headunit with usb connection

 

[silvercruiser]

CD's are old hat

 

[Shayne]

Yes i did see them in my search for a very basic card player Joe but they strike me as a not very tidy (protruding) addition to a typical stereo .

 

[silvercruiser]

just put it on an MP3 player(or my phone is what i use) with a lead tucked away in a convenient place of your choice. the sound will be so much better than a cassette.

 

[Sag]

I put music on my iPod in the glove box and sd card goes in stereo for dvds,no cds as like you say they only last till you put them in door pockets once

 

[Shayne]

This ticks more boxes than anything else i've found its not exactly pretty but if i could plug a reverse camera into the back of it and play sounds from a card it has more functions than i want .

 

[chadr]

My JVC unit doesn't have a USB or SD card slot - I bought it just before these became more common place. It does play MP3s though, so at the time I just copied most of what I wanted to CDs and have them permanently in the car. You can usually get nearly 100 MP3 tracks on a CD at decent quality, so you only need a handful of CDs to shuffle through.

I'll probably go for a headunit with a HDD next time though......saves the hassle of plugging MP3 players in/out and hiding wires etc.