Hi Chris,
Busy time here getting ready for the car show in Vermont(about a 5
hour trip) and having a visitor to the house so I havent had time to
sit down and reply. What you want for information depends partially on
what size and type of speaker you will want to put in the kidney
panels. I chose 6X9 for best sound but if I had to do it over again I
might choose 6X8 or 5X7 to get a little bit snugger fit without
sacrificing too much sound quality. My friend has the standard factory
kidney pads. If you wanted a pattern I could certainly send you a
folded up paper pattern of either of these or take a picture and you
could cut a rough shape in cardboard and do what I did, test fit and
cut, repeat as necessary. Once you have the desirable shape for the
kidney pads its easy. Just position the speaker where you want it, and
cut the hole in the cardboard, test fit again. I had to add back
pieces of cardboard several times until I got it right. Then I took my
pattern and transferred it onto luan or any 1/4 inch wood would do. I
added a slight amount of padding but after I checked out my friends
stock kidney pads I noticed he had quite a bit more padding then I
did. I guess that really comes down to your preference and skill with
padding. What I did recently was to change the mounting from the front
side of the kidney pad to the backside, which makes the speaker stick
out a lit less and looks like a cleaner installation to me. To do this
I drilled the holes for the speaker bolts and stuck the bolts through
the outside of the kidney pad. Then I put a nut on the bolts to hold
them in place. The next part isnt too bad. I bought some vinyl and
using a staple gun with staples that were long enough to go through
the vinyl and padding but not out the other side of the wood I
stretched, cut, stapled and trimmed the excess until I had secured the
vinyl all around the outside of the pattern. Then I cut the speaker
hole and repeated the process. At this point you have a covered pad
with bolts sticking out to slide the speaker on.
The grill that came with the speaker was made of metal and designed
for top mounting, not bottom mounting. So I carefully cut the excess
around the outside, leaving enough so that the speaker grill
overlapped slightly then sandwiched the grill between the speaker and
panel. I bolted down the speaker and then onto the last step,
mounting. I used sticky backed velcro at first and it worked
well....for awhile. Then it started to give way. So I ended up doing a
couple things. I stapled the outside of the velcro to the pad. Problem
solved there. Way under the dash I mounted the mating velcro and
drilled a hole in the middle and took a small sheet metal screw with a
washer and used that to make sure it stayed. While I could easily do
the same thing to my center dash support I havent yet. I am still
using velcro and replacing it ever so often. It is easy enough to do
and only takes 5 minutes from prep to clean up. I am going to attach
brackets to the front of the pads so that they can slide onto the
front of the center console but I havent tackled that quite yet.
I have a busy day planned today and then its off to the show but when
I return if you would like I can take some pics and send them to
you. Sound like a project you want to tackle?
Aaron
Aaron Cropley
71 TR6 (Throttle Body Injection!)
http://www.triumphowners.com/108
Topsham, Maine
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