Nuff

I finally had a chance to replace and upgrade my stock door speakers. I decided to go with Polk Audio 6.5" components. I got them for about $100 on flea bay.



The tweeters were too big to use the stock tweeters covers so I decided to recess them. The woofers were also a little too big to use the stock grills. Since the Polk grills weren't horrible, I decided to just use them. I'd rather have a more stealth look, but I can live with the Polk grills.

Step 1: Remove the tweeters. The tabs are located at eleven and five o'clock (on the passenger side - one and seven on the driver's side). I just pushed down at eleven o'clock (towards five o'clock) and they tipped right out. Then I unclipped the speaker wire.







Step 2: Remove door pocket. The door pocket is held in place by a number of Phillips screws around the edge and one under the flip up door next to the door pull.





Step 3: Unhook door pull. Open the doors handle about 45 degrees and then just lift up on the metal rod. It's held in place by friction and just pops out.



Step 4: Unscrew door handle. There's a single hex bolt (I think it was a #5) under the top of the door handle and two by the door pull. There's also a screw at the rear of the flip up door.





Step 5: Remove window switches. I use trim pulling wedge tools to pry off the switches. Once it's out, just unplug it. Be careful not to let the socket fall into the door panel.



Step 6: Remove speaker grill and speaker. The trim tools weren't strong enough to pry the grill off so I used a large flat head screw driver. Just stick it under the grill and twist to pry it loose. Take your time. Eventually it pops off. Once the grill was off I saw just how bad the speakers were. The speaker is held in by four screws. There are two sets of speaker wires that go into the stock speaker. Since the stock speaker has a built in crossover, one set of wires goes to the head unit and the other set goes to the tweeter. Unplug both sets of speaker wires. I pulled the green wires out since I would be running new speaker wires from the new crossover to the tweeter.









Here, you can see the green wires go from the woofer hole to the tweeter hole.



Step 7: Take off door panel. After removing the door pocket and unbolting the door handle, the only thing holding the panel on are three or four trim plugs. Using trim panel wedges, carefully pop out the plugs and remove the panel.





Step 8: Install tweeter. The Polk tweeters have a recessed mount that requires a two inch hole. First, remove the metal bracket that holds the stock tweeters. Then, cut the vinyl with a sharp razor. To cut the hole, I used a two inch hole saw. The recess mount drops right in. There is a metal bracket that it screws into that holds it in place. Feed the tweeter wire through the mount and push the tweeter in place.









Step 9: Cut hole ... in door (gulp). Using the same hole boring bit (Dewalt bimetal hole cutting bit) carefully cut a 2" hole in the sheet metal directly behind the tweeter. In hindsight, I should have used a slightly larger one since the metal bracket is a little larger than the mount. Since the sheet metal is so thin, it only takes about 20 seconds to cut the hole.







Step 10: Install woofer. The woofer attaches with four screws. Luckily, the 6.5" woofer takes up the same amount of space as the 5.25" stock Nokia speaker so no cutting was necessary.



Step 11: Install crossover. I decided to mount the crossover in the door pocket. It attaches with two screws. I drilled a small hole through the panel next to the crossover to run the wires.



Step 12: Connect wires. This was the easy part. Connect the tweeter wires and woofer wires to the crossover. I cut off the wire plug on the stock wires and attached crimp on bullet connectors to the stock wires. Then, I attached speaker wire to the crossover input with bullet connectors to attach to the stock speaker wires.





Step 13: Put panel back on. Panel goes back on in reverse order. Make sure you don't forget to attach the bullet connectors together. Here is the final result.



Many thanks to geolab for his 993 Door Handle Removal Gasket Instructions. Next, I'll tackle the 4x6 rear speakers using H.H.Chinn's Replacing Rear Deck Speakers thread.

That's it! The sound quality is night and day in comparison to the blown Nokia speakers. All in all, this was a fairly easy install. Probably a 5 on a scale of 1 - 10. The first side took me about an hour and a half. The second side took about 45 minutes (including taking photos).

CaptainGSR

Thank you for that awesome Post! It belongs to the DIYs section for sure! Please post the rear install asap!

The Eagle

Super DIY with pics. Thanks!


~ The Eagle ~
---------------------
'96 Polar Silver/Black C4S, manual, litronics, LED's in the positioning lights, alu/leather shifter & handbrake, silver face gauges with alu rings, "GT" sport seats,
full leather interior, motor sound airbox, stainless door sills, with split rear grill and layered with Meguiar's NXT Tech Wax
__________________
'92 Carrera 2 (Sold)
'89 Carrera 3.2 (Sold)

993MAN

Thats a great DIY job, and looked great.
I replaced my speakers a while ago with some Alpines, and mounted the crossovers like you have. But with the tweeters I just couldn't bring myself to cut a hole for flush mounting, so I shaved the Alpine tweeters to the point they will never fit anything else again. Then I used hot glue to fix them into the factory tweeter mounts.
Seems to work fine.

Nuff

I really debated that. In the end, I decided that it was easier to cut the hole.

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

H.H.Chinn

Excellent write-up with good information on door panel removal. I haven't had a chance to do my door speakers yet as I'm shopping for a speaker component group that will fit into the factory mounting positions. It looks like I'll need to borrow some trim removal tools.

When I replaced my rear deck speakers, I removed the factory wiring plugs from the old Nokias and soldered on new wire leads to the plug terminals, then crimped spade connectors to the end of these leads. This way you can reconnect the rear speakers using the factory plug wires from the head unit.

Amfab

Please put this on Pcarworkshop


its a great write-up

Nuff

Harlan:

I saw your post (which I credited BTW) on your rear deck speakers. I have the same Polks that you used. I'll be doing the same thing (shaving down the speaker grill bracket) when I get some time.

Instead of soldering the new wire leads to the plug terminals, I may just cut it off and crimp on the spade connectors. Is there any reason to save the plug terminal other than to possibly go back to factory speakers?

-Bennett

Nuff

Thanks!

Harlan already posted the rear install:

Replacing Rear Deck Speakers.

I'm just going to follow that.

H.H.Chinn

Just to preserve the originality in the event the car is restored to "factory" can replace the aftermarket speakers by plugging in the paper cone Nokias POC.
I'm just into the preservation and restoration of things.
Thanks for the credit BTW

Jack Ennuste

Very neat installation, I believe that sound quality improved a lot. I have Dynaudios in the front and i throw away rear speakers, having frontal soundspace now. Rear channel pre-out signal goes to subwoofer, installed into left backseat.

Nuff

Oh well ....

I'll just save the plug terminals. I can always recrimp them back on!

Nuff

Sounds cool! Do you have a pic of the rear seat sub?

black ice

Nice install. For anyone reading considering installing components that doesn't want the crossover in the pockets, try dry-fitting them (on the driver's side) up above where your foot rests next to the clutch and (on the passenger's side) above the glove box. An extra hour to run the wires through the door grommets and get them located, but then you have your pockets back.

Dave

99three

Very nice result.