Before the roll bar goes in and the rear shelf becomes inaccessible, I am thinking about deleting the rear speakers (and grills?). Figure it will shave a few pounds and clean up the rear deck look.

Has anyone done this? Assuming I wanted to get the deck re-upholstered, what's involved in removing it and re-installing?

Thanks for any advice.

Best,

Matt

 

I've done it (years ago). The speakers come out with the rear shelf and it's real simple to do. You need to remove the rear wiper also. Well, you don't but if you leave it there, it will look weird, even with the rear carpet.

Once you;re removed the real shelf, you need a rear carpet kit (Appbiz should have them on eBay) which will cover the wiring & metal that's left exposed.
The sound deadening is not an issue because it's attached to the rear shelf.

 

I thought about stripping a stock rear shelf and laying the carpet over that


you will need to fill the speaker holes, the vinyl strips off easily enough but the underlying foam is well glued

here's a trial fit


just MO but it looks too high and the carpet doesn't fit well at the edges soooo...

second try w/ .50" jute, too low, add another .25" layer and that looks to be pretty good. next the sides

 

Easiest would be remove the speakers and leave the grills. I weighed that stuff, and I think you'd only save a grand total of 2 lbs, or something like that.

 

It's true that in the overall scheme of things the rear shelf isn't that heavy, the speakers are probably 50% of the weight.

 

Here are the weights I measured one day when I was bored:

2.8 Rear speakers & grills (pair). Grills alone=0.8 lb.
11-12 rear deck without speakers (shipped w/box=14 lbs)

Yeah, so like I said, if you change nothing but remove the speakers you drop 2.0 lbs. I'd bet that if you removed all the cotton batting underneath, that would be another 3+ lbs.

 

The stripped one in the pic above doesn't even move the dial on my bathroom scale.

It's stripped to the bare minimum except for the the foam cover. But as I said when covered w/ carpet it appears to my eye to be too high and it interferes w/ carpet fitment around the edges.

 

Hmm, thanks guys. Very insightful - thanks for posting the pics.

Seeing what's involved, sounds like a lot of work for very little weight saved and "looks".

Maybe easier to just remove the speakers and leave the grills. Can they be accessed from the top or does that too require disassembly?

Best,

Matt

 

Interesting. All the weight must indeed by in the cotton batting then. That stuff certainly does seem heavy. I considered removing it, but was worried about sound intrusion.

 

The panel comes off with 4 screws in the rear seat area. It's been a while, but I believe the grills are mounted to the panel, and the speakers are mounted to the deck from above.

 

When will someone make a carbon fiber rear deck version with speakers and one deleted????

 

I used rigid foam board for the rear shelf and bulkhead and foam rubber for the sides.
I glued the carpet to the board and foam. It came out nice and smooth.
Mike

 

I can attest that MB965s looks great in person.

Just for future reference i weighed the rear shelves on an accurate postal scale today
stock w/ speakers 10.5#
stripped to just the bare foam layer 5.5#

I know that Trophy said he left his stock side pieces w/ carpeted RS piece in the middle any one else do that?

I did a test that way




not sure whether thats the way to go or not.

 

I will try and get the car out of hibernation this weekend and tke a pic of the interior.

 

April is not that far away and the snow is melting fast so time to dust it off and get ready....

I can attest that Trophy's rear seat carpet setup does look good though.

Marc