Speaker Box Install Finish

I left off the sound system with some test fires and some lingering to-do's. Today's post covers the completion of those steps.

Shorter RCA Cables
The first and easiest to-do was replacing the RCA cables from the head unit to the amp. I originally used cables that were thick and over a meter long (about 4 feet total length). With the head and amp so close together, this left me with lots of extra cable looped all around. I found a vendor on eBarf and had 18" cables delivered. These were perfect, leaving me enough extra cable to maneuver things, but without a bunch of extra to deal with.

Ring Terminal Ground

original light location
note the fuel tank vent / hinge springs

When I first put things together, I didn't have a ring terminal for the ground wire. We were in the middle of a late-winter snowstorm, so getting to the corner hardware store was not in the cards. I didn't want to stop my efforts so I slapped together a ground using a washer and some electrical tape. It did the job, and once he weather improved, trading this hack-job for a real ring terminal was easier than trading out the RCA cables.

With those two things done, the front end of the system was complete. I had a couple of nagging issues in the trunk to deal with, though.

Trunk Light
Back in the boot, I had the speakerbox fit onto the little (less than 4 inches deep) shelf, and against the lots-of-holes-in-it rear fire wall. The speaker was propped up by an old sub woofer that I wasn't going to use. It served the purpose of showing how the speaker would sit, but that wasn't a viable long-term solution. What it revealed was that the trunk light, which sits in the center of the trunk opening furthest forward, would be mostly blocked by the box. It lit up the top of the box beautifully, but the trunk was now mostly dark. So, I moved it.

new light just above latch

The trunk light housing is held to the "beam" that runs over the top of the little shelf by 2 Phillips head screws (picture at right). With these removed, and the purple-circuit fuse pulled, the housing can be lowered. I set the bulb aside and pulled out the feeder-wires from the housing. Those wires were then back-fed through the openings in the body until they were hanging loose by the right-side hinge where the switch is. I cut the 2 wires around the midway point, and then started experimenting with new locations. I decided to mount it to the underside of the trunk lid, just aft of the mount-points for the MG medallion which sits on the trunk top side. There is a cross-member here which provided a place to put the screws through without creating through-holes.

I sent the wires from the housing through the trunk-lid cavity, and found I needed about a foot of wire to re-connect it to the switch. A few minutes of scrounging, cutting, wiring and taping later and the circuit was reconnected. I stuffed the wires into the trunk lid cavity and cable-tied the wire bundle closest to the hinge to the hinge so they wouldn't get hung up on future parcels in the trunk. I replaced the bulb, put the plastic cover on and replaced the purple circuit fuse. Tada! Light fills the trunk better than it did before and the light itself is not in your eyes anymore. I will need to take care with objects shifting in the trunk, though, since the housing is now down near the latch.

Strapping It Down

With the light solved, I needed to create a means of attaching the speakerbox to the car. I want the box to be easily removable, in case we want good sounds at picnics, or if I ever want to use it in Hapy. I also wanted to minimize ant further impact into the storage space in the trunk. So, adding to the little shelf or adding drop-feet to the box were not options. Instead, I thought through options to hold the rear top edge up and forward rather than extra support from below.

I got a spool of 1" nylon strapping. These are used on backpack shoulder straps or gym bags and are super strong. I cut 2 1-foot lengths, and looped one end of each around the tank vent / hinge-springs that run the width of the trunk opening at the front edge. These looped from above, with about 1" of overhang below. I super-glued the edge of the 1" overhang to the longer side, and tested by pulling on them. To these straps, I threaded on the female side of a nylon strap buckle. Now, I had something to attach to in the car, the speakerbox needed something too.

I bought some footman loops for the box-end. I put one footman loop on each end of the rear side of the box, 1.25 inches from the top and 2 inches from the edge. I repeated the nylon strapping process I did in the trunk with the overhang hidden against the box. I threaded the male end of the strap buckle onto these. After a little wrestling and fiddling, the box sets and is free-standing-ish. To install the box, I put the bottom front edge on the little shelf and then lift the box upright while holding the car-side straps to the sides. Once the box is upright, I click the buckles together.

There are always little things that could be changed or improved, but I think, for now, the work is pretty much done. I changed the way the wires connect through to the speaker for greater ease of install, for example, by adding in RCA connectors between the speaker and the speaker wires. That hardly warranted a post, but it was completed once the parts arrived.

Top Down Test Drive
We had a taste of spring with sunny skies and temps in the upper 60F's (about 20C) so Boo and I took Oliver out for a quick spin. I had installed the passenger seat (not post-worthy, it was a basic install with no discoveries nor bungles), so we were ready. Boo hadn't been on a ride except for a short drive down the street and back last summer so we were way overdue. I dropped the top, and pulled into the drive where Boo hopped in. We drove around the local neighborhood and easily chatted over the slight wind noise. We tested the sound too, and while it doesn't sound as good when it is sitting still in the garage, it sounds way better than I expected. The bass is full, the highs are present and the mid's cut through. Yes, there is wind shear, and some of the signal is lost, but most of that loss is filled back in when the volume is turned up. Boo and I agreed that the new seats are super comfortable, and the car would be perfect for a road trip. We just need a reason and a destination.

That's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along--