Another quick 80 Series speaker write up.

[El Perro Grande]

Another upgrade you should not underrate is having the tweeter in the door with the mid. I'm not necessarily talking about it being a two-way speaker, but having the mid and the tweet together in the door as opposed to having a mid in the door and the tweet in the dash makes a bigger difference than you might think. The tweets in the dash to me, is insulting and you really need not look further to know that the stock stereos in 80's are a mere afterthought.

 

[Skillet]

Here is the little plastic basket that the old speaker mounted in.

The old speaker was held into the basket with one phillips screw through the back of the basket and into the back of the speaker magnet.

Obviously, finding an aftermarket 4" speaker of identical size with a small screw hole in the back would be next to impossible, so we must modify.

First pick shows how the Pioneer will not sit in the mounting basket due to the large magnet.

Second pic shows the back of the basket...PRE-modification. You can see the hole in the center where the old mounting screw went.

Third pick shows basket after the modification with a rotary cutting tool.

Pretty straight forward...Careful of your fingers folks!

 

[Skillet]

Okay, next up we see how I mounted the new speakers in the basket...

First pic, speaker sitting nice and flush in basket with back cut out.

Next pick, you can see how the mounting tabs on the new speakers stick out from the side.

You need to postition the speaker how you want it on the basket then bend three of the tabs down flush, against the side of the basket. One of the tabs can bend down into a mounting screw flange, works very nice for holding the speaker in position while you drill small holes through the walls of the mounting basket where the speaker mounting tabs sit.

One of the mounting tabs (that won't fit anywhere) can be trimmed off. I just bent it back and forth until it fell off.

Third pic, after drilling the holes in the basket, I just found some very small tapping screws and proceeded to tighten them into the holes.

Note: Screws need to be very short so they don't interfere with the steel of the speaker frame.

 

[Skillet]

Here is another good shot of the mounting tab on the speaker bent down with the hole drilled for the screw...

 

[Skillet]

Okay...

First pic...wires hooked up to the speaker. The large connection is positive and the small negative. There are no markings on the speaker with + / - so you have to read the side of the box.

Second pic, after the stock harness was snipped from the old speaker, soldered and shrink insulated. Then the harness plugged back into door.

Third pic, mounted back in door.

Note the flange on the top of the mounting basket, it is one of three that hold the speaker cover in place after the door panel is re-installed. Only one of those flanges is painted white on the end, that is the one that points up.

 

[Skillet]

Last but not least...

A few pics of the final mounting and how nice and clean it turned out.

Sounds pretty good too.

Well worth the upgrade.

Don't forget, the speaker covers on the rear doors come off before you remove the door panels. Unlike the front where the covers are attached to the panel.

Hope all this B.S. helps someone out there who just wants a good, solid sounding setup for their 80 for not a lot of dough.

 

[njfzj80]

Whitey,
Nicely done. This will most likely be my next project given I can save up some cash. I hope I'm not asking too much, but any pics of the sub-setup?

Thanks again!

 

[notyourmomslx450]

Great information for those of us in the dark about upgrading the stock sound system. I have some 6-1/2" and 4" eclipse speakers that I've been wanting to put in, but I didn't want to go through the trial and error. I guess I'll have something to do this weekend.

Thanks again for the info!

 

[Skillet]

Great information for those of us in the dark about upgrading the stock sound system. I have some 6-1/2" and 4" eclipse speakers that I've been wanting to put in, but I didn't want to go through the trial and error. I guess I'll have something to do this weekend.

Thanks again for the info!

I don't know about Eclipse but be careful...before I got the Pioneers, I got some Infinity 4" speakers, the magnet was just a hair too large to fit in the actual hole in doors sheet metal. I did not want to cut the door so I went with the smaller magnet on the pioneer.

I just say this so you will check before you start cutting and bending things.

 

[Skillet]

Whitey,
Nicely done. This will most likely be my next project given I can save up some cash. I hope I'm not asking too much, but any pics of the sub-setup?

Thanks again!

Sure, I will snap a couple of pics and post em' in a bit.

 

[Razorshock]

Great information for those of us in the dark about upgrading the stock sound system. I have some 6-1/2" and 4" eclipse speakers that I've been wanting to put in, but I didn't want to go through the trial and error. I guess I'll have something to do this weekend.

Thanks again for the info!

I kept the stock head unit as well. If the Eclipses you have are those high-sensitivity 8353's that I got from the forum recommendations you'll like them. For me replacing the front speakers alone made a large difference.

 

[Skillet]

Another upgrade you should not underrate is having the tweeter in the door with the mid. I'm not necessarily talking about it being a two-way speaker, but having the mid and the tweet together in the door as opposed to having a mid in the door and the tweet in the dash makes a bigger difference than you might think. The tweets in the dash to me, is insulting and you really need not look further to know that the stock stereos in 80's are a mere afterthought.

Agreed.

I do not really understand that useless setup. Pumping the high notes right into your knee.

Good thing Toyota started contracting out for their stereo stetups.

 

[Skillet]

BassLink

Here is the pic of the basslink install, as requested.

 

[Ted44]

So here's my addition to the speaker info. Sorry no pics...


I went to CC and bought the 6 1/2 " Pioneers Whitey used. I did some different things because I'm just that way about stuff.

The extra wiring harness that CC sells to hook directly to the factory harness does not fit. It has a cool little plug that has no resemblance to the cool little plug the factory speaker used. I cut the wires from the factory speaker and spliced them to the wires that came with the Pioneers and used the factory plug.

The Pioneer dang near fit in the factory hole, and I had the spacers to get it to fit, but the factory grill mounting pins that protrude through the door panel were going to come in contact with the new speaker cone and suspension ring. Maybe I missed something in Whitey's write-up, which would be typical for me, but I said "screw it" and popped the factoryy grills out. I put the panel back on and used the mounting hardware that came with the Pioneers, including the grills. They fit great! No contact with the dash or door frame and they are not too ghetto looking. They sound awesome in comparison to the rotted-out factory units. I am pretty sure I can fab a way to get the factory grills to work for appearance sake, but for the time being I am very satisfied with this job.

 

[Razorshock]

Has anyone tried mounting a regular full range speaker in place of the factory sub? might be nice to have *some* sound coming from that area.

 

[Skillet]

The extra wiring harness that CC sells to hook directly to the factory harness does not fit. It has a cool little plug that has no resemblance to the cool little plug the factory speaker used. I cut the wires from the factory speaker and spliced them to the wires that came with the Pioneers and used the factory plug.

The wiring harness I bought was for the head unit itself, not the speakers. It worked great. I did not know they sold a harness for the speakers.
I did exactly what you did, cutting the wires from the factory speakers and soldering them to the pioneer wires. That was perfect and cost nothing.

Post some pics of what you did with the speakers if you can. I would like to see what you are saying about the grills. I never touched my factory ones and they went back in place perfectly. Maybe different between '93 and '95...hmmmm.

 

[Ted44]

Razorshock,

I have thought about that. Or maybe a small woofer that will mount there?

Whitey,

Hard to take picture of, but the door panel was going to squeaze tight against the speaker and the little studs sticking through the panel that hold the stock grill were pushing into the speaker. I removed the stock grills so I can't really recreate the scene.

I appreciated the heads up on the speakers though. I'm gonna do the back doors ASAP. It's nice having some decent sound without getting all crazy. I'm just not that into the audio stuff at this point, just getting everything baselined and having a blast learning about this vehicle.

 

[farmdwg]

Thanks for this write up. This is great info.

Did you end up replacing the 2 speakers in the way back? The ones that are in the headliner?

So 6 1/2's for the front doors and 4" for the rear doors. Right? Did you have to put spacers for the rears?

Thanks.

 

[boydmick]

Also, how much room is there behind the magnet on the rear doors?

Or I guess a better question is: how far from the sheetmetal lip of the speaker hole until you would hit something inside the door?

 

[Razorshock]

Razorshock,

I have thought about that. Or maybe a small woofer that will mount there?

.

Looks like someone has tried this with okay results... https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?p=892261#post892261

I'll try this and include results in a future post.