ToyoTruck Saga Continues

Earlier, I posted about a new arrival to the fleet (a 2006 Toyota Tacoma XRunner) and the smash into a post that followed. Today's post is the next step in that saga. 

 

Where Were We

front assembled

We got a $5k repair estimate, but insurance wouldn't pay (because the agent screwed up). So, I ordered the parts, and set about doing the work myself. With supply issues, it took an incredible amount of time for everything to arrive and the largest part, the hood, arrived with a big dent in it. I successfully replaced the fender, the 6-piece bumper and the fender liner. The radio antenna was so corroded, it could not be removed, so I had to replace it as well. The hood scoop was also degraded, so I ordered another one of those. I ended the post while waiting for supply chains to support a new hood, as well as deliver the replacement passenger-side flare and the hood scoop.

Hood Gets Hammered

I decided I could no longer wait for parts while the new truck occupied my best work bay (read: prevented me from working on Hapy). Besides, there was no way to know how long it would be before a new dent-free hood would be available again. So, I decided that I would do my best to get the old hood straight enough to fit without putting pressure on the new fender nor passenger front headlight. I started with my angle grinder, removing the remaining paint from the dented area. The leading edge of the hood had been crumpled under, against a lateral bulge that rests just rearward of that edge, along the underside of the hood (see the picture on the right). Since the lip was forced against that bulge, I was unable to get a tool between the two.

the damage from the underside

I started with the stud welder and a slide hammer kit I got from Harbor Freight when I started working on Zed (1978 280ZX). With the 2mm tip and studs, I was able to slowly move the leading edge of the hood away from the lateral bulge. After about 30 minutes, and a dozen studs, the edge had pulled back far enough for me to fit a dull chisel against the leading edge. By moving the chisel up and down the lip, giving it a few smacks every few millimeters, I was able to further shift the edge away.

Once the edge had been moved about a finger-width from the bulge, I started shifting from the hammer/chisel on the lip to the stud welder / slide hammer on the top of the hood and back. My hope was that I could get some of the original hood contour back while I got the edge pulled. I spent about 90 minutes in total before I felt that it was close enough to set on the truck to see how close I was getting.

Old Hood Finish Up

time to try fitting

I was satisfied enough with the hammer work to move the windshield washer hoses and the seal. I figured that if I was as close as I'd hoped, I wouldn't want to remove the hood simply to put these bits on it. Like so many things, the first time always takes longer than any subsequent attempt. I had the bits moved in minutes. The hood set quickly as well. Some cars have a great deal of adjust-ability when the hood is mounted, but this truck does not. Yes, there is some, but not more than an inch left-to-right at the front edge. I did not need much to get the hood evenly spaced between the fenders, though.

Similar to the hood removal, I set the front of the hood on my old plastic tool box so I could get to the hinge bolts. Before I slammed the hood down, I checked the height between the headlight and the hood edge on both the driver and passenger sides to make sure I wouldn't break the light housing. I found that I had over compensated with my hammering, but only by 1 or 2mm. I started a recurring cycle of identifying where the gap was, opening the hood, adjusting, and re-closing the hood. After 4 or 5 of these cycles, I was satisfied that it was good enough for now.

finished enough

The stud-welder took it's toll on the hood, however. Some of the studs were welded on so well, that my efforts with the slide hammer resulted in a small hole in the hood. I own that, though: I believe that I held the trigger a touch too long on those studs, setting too strong of a weld. Some of the other studs would not come off no matter how hard I hammered them. I ultimately had to cut them off, but there were bits left behind. So, I pulled out the angle grinder again, and ground the dent-damaged areas of the hood smooth to the touch. I shot the polished metal with some rattle-can automotive primer and then some basic black Rustoleum. The final-for-now product is pictured on the right. That passenger flare will be installed when it arrives. I haven't decided about the scoop insert.

Weeks Later, It's Done

At this point, I felt done enough with this project. Yes, some part of what I put together will need to come back apart for painting and when the passenger side wheel flare arrives, I will attach it. One day, I hope to have a better hood, and when that day comes I need to install the scoop insert as well. Since I would like to have the whole truck painted, I may take it to Beaverton Auto Body and have them do it. We already have a somewhat dated estimate, but at least we know what ballpark they are in. Of course, with inflation these days plus all the extra parts expenses I incurred, a re-shoot could be prohibitively expensive. Expensive enough to bring that work right back to my driveway to be shot in my home-made "booth" later. Oddly enough, the extra parts (scoop insert, p-side flare, and antenna) plus a second and future $500 hood still will still be less in parts than the Beaverton Auto Parts bid. And that number includes a hood I can't use, and I have not tried to sell off any parts I got and did not actually need.

That's it for today. I will return to the hood when I get one, and otherwise I will be focusing on Hapy again. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Enter ToyoTruck

Super long post today, and I still didn't get the project all the way done in one post. I did get most of the way, though, and I'll wrap it up next time. For today, I'll hit some background first, and then get into the adventure with this new-to-us truck. Since this started on Christmas 2021 and today is the first of March 2022, clearly this has been quite a saga. At the rate this is progressing, it will be competed mid-Summer.

Background - the setup

example image

When C returned for winter break from University, he left his car ('09 Subie) on campus. He needed a car while he was home so he could get to work, but we have a significantly reduced the operable fleet (sold Flash, sold K'Lack). So, we borrowed-as-a-prelude-to-buy Boo's sister Rose's Toyota Tacoma X-Runner. I am referring it ToyoTruck for now, though the interweb folks often call these "taco's". I suspect it will get a better name when it presents iteself. Rose has an older Ford truck that is getting a new engine swapped in, so this Toyota was kind of extra anyway. Clearly, having extra cars around is a family thing for us, and with the rehab we plan on doing on this house, having a pickup readily available for supply runs will be valuable. Anyway, C arrived home a few days before Christmas, just in time for some radical winter weather. We got snow, and ice, and more snow, some sleet, and melting followed by freezing. It was a full-blown winter stew. We let C use Boo's '09 Audi A4 (all wheel drive, newer M&S tires, etc) while Boo drove ToyoTruck. ToyoTruck is rear-wheel drive with mostly-worn-down summer highway tires. That would have been fine if it weren't for the winter weather. With Boo's new schedule, she has to report by 7:AM, which means leaving well before dawn, and right about at the overnight low temperature. This lead to a Christmas morning (yes, she worked Christmas morning) sliding-on-the-ice scenario which ended with the truck smacking a pole. The passenger fender, the bumper cover, passenger headlight, passenger fog light, the leading corner of the hood and some assorted little bits all were affected by the very low speed impact. The damage seemed minimal enough that Boo continued on to work. It wasn't until the next day that we got to access the damage in the daylight.

How Does that Insurance Commercial Go Again?

after post-smack

In the daylight, it looked pretty twisted, but it is mostly surface damage. I took a bunch of pictures and we tried to get a claim going with our insurance company. Turns out that insurance goes with the car, not the driver, so we needed to use Rose's insurance. We learned this while we were getting bids (~$5k) on the work. This is where insurance got interesting: even though Rose told Allstate she wanted "full coverage" the agent pulled a massive boner and failed to include collision (pays for damage to your car). How that meets the definition of "full coverage", I don't know, but I swear this feels like one of their ads... where they say the competitor will leave you hanging with a tagline like "if you don't have Allstate...". It appears that the Allstate ad is actually self-describing. Maybe their ad should be more like "if you let our agents do it, you're gonna get screwed". So, to sum this up: we borrowed a truck, slid into a pole causing ~$5k worth of damage and there's no insurance to fix it. Happy Christmas.

Paulie: Bodyman

Fast Times Camaro

To resolve, I tried my best Spicoli imitation: "Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it." Of course, the next scene in that movie (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) has that car, unrepaired, but tagged with Ridgemont sucks / Lincoln rules spray-paint. Instead of that, I'm actually going to repair it. I took the itemized bid and ordered all of the parts the body shop said needed to be replaced from CarParts.com. This cost about $1300US delivered. The bid had the parts for around $2k, so we are already ahead in the game. I will simply remove and install the parts I received, and hope I discover nothing else is wrong. The labor for the body panel removal/replacement was $900US. So, if I can get the truck back into one piece, I will have saved over half the bid. At $900US, using my usual price for my labor ($50/hr for simple math), I break even at 18 hours. On its surface, I think I can get way under that. I had a great experience with CarParts.com, by the way. The bumper cover was wrapped in thick plastic wrap inside a huge box and the fender was made-in-Taiwan steel double-wrapped in custom cardboard protecting it plus packing material between the wrapped fender and the box sides. The packaging of the headlights was equally protective. Some of the shipping, however, was spotty. We can credit GLS for losing and then claiming delivery of almost half the order. Ultimately, they got the parts to me, 2 weeks after they said they were delivered. That final delivery was curious in that the box appeared without a text nor email update, though I had been set up for both. Sneakily done, GLS.

 

Finally, with all the parts I had ordered in my garage, I was ready to get started. I had finally gotten the 2016 Sprinter seats installed into Hapy (See Hapy Seating Part 2), so I could shuffle vehicles around. Hapy went back into the driveway and ToyoTruck moved under the canopy so I can work out of the rain.

Body Panel Removals

2 replacement bits in

I started by removing the front grill, fog lights and bumper cover. Then, I pulled the headlights and removed the fender, leaving the hood for last. The grill is held to the top of the radiator support with 3 Phillips screws across the top. Down below, the electrical plugs for the fog lights are simple tab-lock plugs. Since I am replacing the fog-lights with the bumper, I left the old lights in the old bumper. For reference, just press the tabs and they wiggle out. With the plugs out, the fog lights can push through the bumper (after pressing inwards on the plastic retaining tabs). The bumper cover is held on with plastic push-on tabs across the top as well as a few from underneath. These pop free with a slotted screwdriver. Since they are 15+ years old, they will often fail on removal. There are also a few 10mm screws as well, all from below. The ends of the bumper cover tie into the inner wheel well plastic, but eventually, once the last fastener is free, the bumper just wiggles free.

I next removed the under-headlight trim bits. There is a small plastic push-on thing, like the ones that held the bumper cover, on the inside that attaches the trim bit to the headlight, but the rest of it just clicks into place... or out of place. The headlights are held in place with long Phillips-head bolts from the top, and 2 more on the sides (one connects to the lower radiator support, the other through the side of the fender). The lights unplug, but if they are stubborn, the bulbs which are not the main beam twist out with a 90* twist. Then, the plug can be wrestled free. The last big thing to remove is the fender itself. There are obvious bolts from above, but there is one hidden in the door jam near the top and one from the outside just rear of the wheel well. Of course, before final removal, the inner wheel well needs to be removed, and the antenna needs to be dealt with.

 

super-glued tabs on the flare

 

The Inevitable Annoying Bits

The antenna and the inner wheel well skin are the worst part of this parts exchange. The antenna had become heavily oxidized and corroded, completely freezing the top nut. I ultimately broke-off the lower antenna mast so I could continue and ordered a top-to-bottom replacement, adding another $140US to the parts costs. Even on my garage floor, I was unable to separate the antenna bit from the bent fender.

The plastic inner wheel well is held in place by ribbed plastic clips along the inner edge and in a couple spots in the middle. Along the outer edge of the fender, the fender, the inner wheel well and the outer faring (flare) are held together with Phillips/10mm screws. When the truck hit the pole, the 3 top mount points along the outer faring / flare all broke. I did not realize that until I was removing things. Rather than order a replacement ($130US plus delivery), I collected the mounting ears and super-glued them back onto the flare as shown in the picture. Once the superglue had set up, the tabs did not wiggle. Since they broke off so cleanly, I could see their original pitch. So, I simply matched that and held the tabs for a 15 count as the glue set.

With the big parts out of the way, we can see where the little bits that Beaverton Auto Body suggested replacing. There is a small plastic bit that looks like a tiny fist with the hole in it that is Phillips-screwed to the fender. This holds the edge of the bumper in the right spot relative to the fender. There are 2 long thin brackets which support the top and bottom of the bumper cover (and lower leading edge of the fender) which were definitely tweaked. The small triangular bit that attaches to the passenger-side front (front is front) of the radiator support, extends forward to the other end of the long thin bracket, had a subtle twist to it. All of these attach with 10mm bolts, and you can see them installed in the picture above captioned "2 replacement bits in". They are the ones with big white labels.

Start Re-Assembly

windshield washer lines pre-removal

I started with the small bits: the triangular bracket first, and then the support bracket on the passenger side. I decided that the driver side bracket was untouched by the accident, so replacement was unnecessary. I swapped out the driver-side headlight next, re-using the original under-headlight trim bit since it was undamaged. Then, I tackled the fender. It is surprising how much faster install can be when you know where the fasteners go. I started with the 2 most difficult: the one on the bottom, heading straight in from the outside, and the one from inside the door. The bottom bolt is really only difficult because of all the extra lower body trim that appears on the XRunner needs to be loosened and held out of the way. I fear that I will need to completely remove all of the panels on that side because of all the dirt and sand I found in there when I took it apart. That dirt/sand may prevent a clean, tight install. Anyway, with the hard bolts in, I ran the bolts in along the top edge and then the front pair into the new bracket. I am not thrilled with the gap along the hood, but I will concern myself with that once the new hood goes on. It is possible that the hood got tweaked beyond just the small dent in the front corner.

After the fender, I installed the passenger-side headlight and the replacement under-trim. Other than cannibalize plastic fasteners from the bent and broken old body panels, this was as far as I could get at this point. I ordered a set of plastic snap-fasteners, but they had not arrived yet. Also, I had not planned for the antenna, so I could not completely button-up the fender and wheel well anyway. Yes, I could have stopped the post here...

The Hood

only disconnect needed

I was able to source everything, except the hood, from CarParts.com. For the hood, I turned to eBay, and got burned with a hood that arrived with a dent. My cursory inspection upon delivery did not detect that the passenger side had a couple of bashes in it under the cardboard wrap. I had checked the other 3 sides, so lesson learned here: completely unwrap the entire thing before you sign. I didn't know the pair of dents were there until I went to install it after installing the inner wheel skin down below, sadly. So, if I want a clean hood, I will order, pay, wait for and move-bits onto a second hood. FFS. Of course, with the supply chain issues around the world, there is a very small set of these hoods in the western US. In fact, according to the local Toyota dealer, there aren't any.

 

Obviously, the hood is held to the truck by 2 large hinges. Additionally, the windshield washer nozzles are in the hood. There are a few other things to transfer to the new hood, so I simply disconnected the washer hose and removed the bolts to free the hood. Then, I set the old hood next to the new hood in my garage. Piece by piece, with the puppy (Tuukka) watching, I moved the washer nozzles, bits of hose, the sealing rubber bits and the front rubber feet. Those feet are pretty interesting: they are solid rubber and thread in. You set the height of the closed hood by turning them clock or anti-clock wise. Very clever design.

 

There is a sealing strip that runs along the rear edge of the hood, held on by little plastic fasteners. I was able to free them without damaging them by using a door panel removal tool. I expected the washer nozzles and hose to the the hard part, with the scoop insert to be a breeze. It was the opposite, with the hose retainer plastic bits and the washer nozzles popping off with only a little difficulty, but remaining intact for reuse. These bits are held in place by little plastic barbs that need to be pinched in for removal. I used a slotted screwdriver, working one side and then the other until each one was free.

Hood Scoop Insert

The hood scoop insert, however, has seen better days. The mounting studs all backed out of the scoop, rather than allow the nuts to back off the stud. The 2 front studs would not separate from the old hood at all, and last, during install into the new hood, it cracked. This plastic is over 15 years old, and based on the damaged paint on the top of the vehicle and the sand I found in the wheel liner, I think we can conclude that this truck lived at the beach for a while, getting salt water on it while driving on the wet sand. I suspect it was parked outside mostly, as well, further accelerating the aging of the exterior. I will accordingly reset expectations for any other exterior bits I touch going forward.

I ordered a replacement hood scoop insert (another $140US for parts), and started considering doing a complete respray of this thing once the damage has been resolved. Of course, with the way I have to keep buying parts, that respray may need to wait a while. Meanwhile, I was in a holding pattern waiting for parts... and I was looking for a hood, again. Yes, I could have stopped the post here as well.

The Bumper

dry-fitting the bumper

The bumper cover / assembly is actually 6 distinct plastic bits: the main bumper cover, of course, a decorative center piece below the grill, 2 end pieces and 2 lower valences (split in the middle). Of these parts, we damaged 3: the main cover, the passenger-side valence and passenger-side end. All of these parts are held together with these blue wedge-like plastic clips. I was able to salvage all but one (which disappeared), which tells us just how slow moving the crash was. While I waited for parts, I re-assembled the bumper bits, excluding the decorative center. I had thought that I could paint the bumper as an assembly, but, I realized that I would need to take it all apart to install the decorative bit anyway, so I will be taking this all apart to shoot it. Of course, I put all this together mentally after I had put the bumper together physically. LOLs.

Still, by having the bumper bits together, I could dry-fit the front end together. Also, this reduced a big pile of parts in my small garage, and it helped me understand what bits I could sell-off, and which I still needed. For example, I discovered that there are little rubber strips between the main bumper cover and both the lower valences and the end bits. In the upper dry-fit picture, you can see the old valences on the ground below. A keen eye could see the rubber seals on top. I will be re-claiming those rubber bits before I dispose of the broken plastic parts. As you can also see. I have not removed the protective film from the lights yet; no need to tempt fate.

More Parts Arrive...

dry-fitting with the grille

After another week of waiting, things I ordered during the tear-down / re-assembly started to appear on my doorstep. So, I got back to it, starting with the antenna.

 

The antenna arrives with a stretch of cable that's about 1/2 a meter long with a pair of mounting clips already attached. This cable passes through the side wall and the fire wall up behind the glove box, and then runs up into the A pillar where it plugs into another cable. This seems like a strange design, but it's how it is. To access everything, the glove box needs to come out and the passenger grab handle needs to come out. There are a couple of plastic retaining clips that need to be popped (the OEM replacement antenna arrives with new clips) and then it is ready for removal. I attached a string to the end of the antenna cable and pulled it out through the side wall. I moved the string from the old cable to the new and pulled the string, bringing the cable along the original path.

 

The plastic tabs were in the right spots, and they popped in. The one in the rear of the picture below was a little difficult, but only because it is in a hard-to-get-to spot. I found by getting the front edge of the clip (front is front) first, allowed me to put pressure on the rear edge with a slotted screwdriver, snapping it home. Once the cable was in, the panels were installed in the order I removed them. The leading edge of the A-pillar trim inserts into a slot on the edge of the dash (seen in picture below) while the upper end has a tab that also fits into a slot: idiot-proof. The grab handle only fits into the A-pillar trim one way, and, because of the tabs, the mounting bolts align without effort. Inside the fender, the cable has a rubber grommet to seal the pass-thru hole. The top of the lower mast is then passed up into the hole in the fender and the lower end is bolted to a mounting tab with a 10mm bolt. After all the wrestling with German over-engineering, I really like this Japanese design. I feel like the Tacoma was built with owner maintenance in mind. I finished up the antenna on top of the fender with the outer rubber bit and nut and then threaded on the upper mast.

The Inner Wheel Well

installing antenna

All I had left was the inner wheel well, but I didn't explain the assembly of the rest of the bumper. As I mentioned earlier, I assembled the bumper, but I needed the bits to mount it. This was a straight-forward matter of using the plastic snap-clips where they belonged, and using the 10mm screws where they belonged. Since I failed to take quality pictures during tear-down, this was not as smooth as it could have been. Still, it all went together, leaving the passenger side wheel well. I purchased a replacement inner skin because I saw that the original had been damaged in the accident. The new liner was an exact match, and fitting it was not as terrible as installing on the old Jettas, but it was pretty close. These plastic liner things are the absolute worst. I did the outer edge last, simply because this edge also held the flare in place and I felt trying to juggle 3 things which were not in any way attached was at least one too many. The inner edge was straightforward: set the plastic skin where it is supposed to be and slam the plastic bit through the holes. The challenge for me was getting the square holes in the skin to consistently align with the square holes in the under-body.

With the skin now held in place by a handful of plastic bits, the outer edge was easier. I started at rear bottom and worked my way up. Again, having pictures would have been helpful so I could confidently set the skin / fender / flare stack correctly. Absent that, I just considered where water would go. So, I put the inner skin "outside" the fender along the rear edge for the first 3 fasteners (block water kick-up from the tires from getting inside fender) and at a cut-out transitioned it "inside" (so water drips from above don't run under the inner skin). At this point, I attempted to mount the fender flare. The super glue repair I described above failed almost immediately, so I shifted to the hood.... at which point I discovered the dents and my progress halted again.

 

I am going to halt this post here, and pick it up in another one. This has gotten very long, matching the saga, and the truck is still not in one piece. And, again, I'm waiting for parts.

Thanks for following along and more next time-

Returning to Hapy Sounds - Part 2

I have spent some time improving the stereo set up in the bus when time has permitted. In a prior posting (See Returning to Hapy Sounds - Part 1), I described my effort to move the 5-1/4" speakers from the falling-apart door cards into small speaker boxes/pods constructed from a pair of schedule 40 4" pipe caps. These caps, now speaker pods, were attached to a removable piece of the vent system, so they are about knee-height and facing rearward. Today, I add another front speaker improvement.

Dash Speakers

image from FastFab

When these buses were first sold, there was a speaker mounted under the dashboard, pointing up at the windscreen, if you got the radio option. Regardless, the dash was constructed the same way, with perforations near the center of the dashboard top, a screw hole at the dash center-point near the windscreen and two mounting tabs underneath. While you could create something to hold a speaker, or a pair of speakers, leveraging the 2 tabs and the screw hole, a fabrication company already has. FastFab, based in La Hambra, CA, created a basic panel (product page here) into which a pair of 3-1/2" speakers can be mounted.

It should be noted, however, while the image on the product page, also appearing on the right, appears with rubber feet on the left side (which would fit into the mounting tabs), a mounting screw on the right side and speakers in-between... none of these are actually part of what you are buying. For $30US, you get a plain piece of bent metal with some holes bored into it. The product page does say that it does not include mounting hardware. However, in good faith, they could have included a picture of what you are actually getting. Simply, I was and remain unimpressed. I concluded it would probably take me more than an hour to make something similar and it probably wouldn't look as nice. I had it in-hand, so I moved forward with it.

3-1/2 Speakers

For speakers, I got a pair of 3-1/2 inch Kicker speakers. The model matches the 5-1/4 inch speakers I have mounted in the speaker pods I built in the last post, so the 3-1/2's should pair well. These cost me about $60US delivered, and they arrived with mounting hardware and wiring bits, but no grills. Since the dashboard has the perforations, and these speakers are going to mount inside the dash, grills are unnecessary. Crutchfield indicated on their website that these 3-1/2 speakers are an easy stock-swap replacement, where you re-use the stock grills, and that is why a grills are not delivered with the speakers.

I noticed that the panels had some sizing issues almost immediately after I started pairing the speakers with it. There are 2 misses: the mount holes, into which the black screws would ordinarily go to hold the speaker to the panel, are too large. So, the black screws which arrived with the 3-1/2 inch speakers could not be used. Second, the 2 large holes that the speakers are to set into are slightly too large. So, the speakers fit, but they shift around and will not sit cleanly without spending some time tweaking. When you combine these 2 design misses with the non-existent mounting bits, there is little actual value being delivered by these panels other than the bends and holes are in the right places.

Mount Speakers to Panel

speakers on panel

Unlike the picture on the product page, I chose to set my speakers through from the top, rather than suspend them from the bottom. This way, if one or more of the bolt/nut combinations fail, the speaker will not fall out of the panel. If I mounted it from below, loose fasteners could cause a speaker to drop out. Since the supplied black screws were not usable (panel holes too large), I found 4 gold-colored bolts in my home-electrical bin. These bolts had been for the copper grounding wire in electrical outlets. I had 4 nuts that fit, so away we go. As I mentioned earlier, getting the speakers to set just right them took some fiddling, but once they were set, and the bolt/nuts tightened, the panel was about ready for install. I like how the gold bolt heads match the gold centers of the speakers. In cases like this, it's better to be lucky than good. I added a couple of small pieces of foam on either side of the front mounting screw hole as well as on the mounting feet on the panel. This should reduce any vibration transmitting from the panel to the bus and vice versa. The foam on the feet became quite compressed from my use of clothespins to hold the foam in place, but they actually fit perfectly into the mounting tabs.

Dash Back to Black

Before I set the panel into the bus, I wanted to black-out the dash top. A prior owner had painted it gloss white, and that was the way it was when I bought Hapy. The glare on bright days was remarkable. So, when I replaced the windshield a few years ago due to age-related glazing, I painted the dash flat-grey like the rest of the interior of the bus. This was a considerable improvement, but there is a reason most cars have a black dash top: least daylight glare. I found a rattle-can of satin black in my garage, so after taping off the vinyl cover and the windshield seal, I shot what I could reach. There are areas that cannot be reached with a spray can, however: the vertical or nearly-vertical strips cannot be "seen" by the spray no matter the angle you hold the can. To get them color-consistent, I needed to hand-paint them with a short foam brush. This is kind of fun, actually. You can only see what you are doing through the windshield, so you blindly paint a little, run around to the front to see what you did and then repeat.

dash cover product image

I got to thinking about the noise in the bus, and how I want to reduce opportunities for sound to bounce off hard surfaces. The metal dash is a great example of one of those hard surfaces. So, after the painting efforts described above, I bought a DashCare dash cover. Knowing that the dash has contours to it, I paid the extra $5US for the faux suede, "DashSuede", rather than the standard thicker carpet model. This also "is low knap for a flat, low glare finish and will have high-low shading effects typical of Suede material". Once the sun returns, we'll see how "low glare" non-reflective it is. Since it has a thin foam core, it may help reduce reflected sound. I don't expect much, but every little bit helps. For now, this cover sits in a box, waiting for the projects to conclude.

Wire It Up

I stripped and prepped the wires before mounting the center panel. I figured I would have a hard enough time simply reaching the wires, and I was right. When I did the 5-1/4 speaker install, I knew I had these coming. So, I had spliced in a second stretch of speaker wire per speaker, so they were simply dangling when I brought the panel over. I simply routed the wire from the driver side under the dash and over the e-brake mechanics, dropping down into the passenger side foot well. In the picture on the right, here, I had the driver side wired in, using the passenger-side Sprinter seat as a work surface. Notice that the driver side is not installed yet. Still waiting... still waiting.

 

At this point, I had the wires and the speakers in a panel, so I simply I wired the speakers up: left -to- left, right-to-right. I suppose I could have tried to mix them up, but I didn't think there would be much left-right separation with the speakers so close together, so it didn't really matter. Either way, there are a pair of speakers pushing the left signal and a pair pushing the right. It is important to have all the speakers running on the same signal wiring to have the same resistance. Otherwise, sound levels will be inconsistent between them. By using the same manufacturer and the same series within that manufacturer, the sound will be as consistent as I could manage.

Mount Panel to Bus

Depending on how much crap you have under the center section of the dash of your bus, this could be anywhere from simple to very complicated. A few years ago, I had force-stuffed a rectangular plastic box into the original radio hole, and Hapy had some random wiring otherwise. I yanked the plastic box out, with a plan to do a better install later. Negotiating around the wires just took a ltitle patience. Once clear, the 2 feet set into the 2 mounting tabs towards the rear and the panel swings forward and up. I threaded a black screw that had delivered with the speakers through the hole in the dashboard and through the mount hole on the panel. I found that I had to start the threads on that screw first, and tighten down most of the way, before setting the feet. Otherwise the feet would pop off the little tabs. In fact, I got the front (front is front) screw almost all the way down and then swiveled the panel slightly to get the feet to set in the tabs. Then, I tightened that list little bit. As I wiggled the unit, there were no indications that the speakers were touching the underside of the dash.

 

Fire It Up

Once it was all put together, we were ready to test. As pronounced an improvement we realized when I moved the 5-1/4 speakers, adding the 3-1/2 speakers into the center of the dash was even more significant. The sound is very present now, with LOTS of mid and upper range, but the real test will be on the road with the noise of the engine, the drive-train, the traffic and the tires competing for our ears. Between the small 3-1/2" speakers and the very shallow pods for the 5-1/4" speakers, there was not as much bass as I like (I like a LOT of bass). I found that the head unit had reset while I had the power shut off, so the bass-boost was turned off during initial tests. Once I turned it back on and faded more signal to the rear, the bass came through and the bus is full of sound. Still, if you do something similar, it is reasonable to expect that the 3-1/2 speakers will push more high and mid than bass. I am looking forward to a road test to see if we lose the bass to road noise, forcing, perhaps, a sub into the mix.

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

Returning to Hapy Sounds - Part 1

In the midst of the Summer 2019, I added the ability to listen to music to Hapy, the 1972 TDI-powered microbus (See Making Hapy Sounds Part 2, for example). Today, I start my revisit with the front speakers. In this part of the front speaker improvement, I create very very small speaker boxes for a pair of 5-1/4" speakers with materials readily available at the hardware store; remove the speakers from the door cards and mount them into those speaker boxes; and last, get it all into the bus. Unlike most of my posts, the overwhelming majority of the measurements are in inches rather than mm. This is because here in the US, all of the published material about speakers is in inches. So, any information I put here can be more easily cross-referenced.

Why?

Diablo Royale pod

I guess it makes sense to start with answering the question "why are you making a change". There are a couple of reasons. First, the door cards that I made out of pressed cardboard are starting to fail. Unlike the original cards, the material I used was not designed for this purpose. So, over time, as some moisture appeared (this is the Pacific NorthWest, after all), the cards started to bend, and pull away from the doors. With the 5-1/2" speakers mounted in the lower part of the card, the card condition deteriorated more quickly as the speaker added a swing-weight whenever the door was opened or closed. So, when the door was closed, the bottom of the card (and the speaker) were not mated to the door, allowing the speaker to kind of hang in space a little bit.

I decided to replace the pressed cardboard cards with a laser-cut PVC set from WerksBerg. These precision-cut PVC cards are great, and many options are available, but a pre-cut hole for speakers is not one of them. I decided that I didn't really want to cut the PVC. This leads to our second reason: while the sound was okay, it wasn't awesome and maybe it could be better while driving. The only real upside to the speakers being in the doors was the added sound we got in the music festival camping lot when we opened the passenger door. When driving around, there was music, but it lacked some clarity. Of course, the road, engine and wind noise contributed, but that's another whole story... and solution path for another day. I think speakers just hanging in space (back not enclosed) negatively impacted the quality of the sound, and the cards were not going to last much longer.

Options

schedule 40 4" cap

So, if the speakers are not going to be in the door, what other options are there? There are a few. Some folks cut holes in the toe kick. This brings the advantage of having speakers facing you, but they are still down by your feet. Some bus owners replace the little fresh air vents with little speakers. This option moves the sound closer to your ears, which is great, but you lose those vents, and the only speakers that fit in there are super small (like 2" tweeters).

If you have a parcel shelf under the dash, you can set/mount speakers in boxes placed on the shelf. The shelf narrows on the outer edges, so speakers most likely fit best near the center of the bus, near the central air pipe. I don't have those shelves, but even near the center they do not look terribly deep. When I first bought Hapy, a prior owner (PO) had mounted small boxed speakers to the big metal air vent boxes. They didn't work, and the PO had taken the stereo with him so I pitched those speakers. Of these options, I do prefer rear-facing / under-the-dash locations over the door cards. The trick will be figuring out how to mount them, and exactly where they will provide sound best.

5-1/4" Thinking

test fitting 5-1/4 speaker

So, we start with figuring out a way to mount / hang speakers under the dash such that they won't get damaged yet they fling sound towards us. The 5-1/4" round speakers I have are kinda large for the space. Sure, 6-1/2" round speakers are bigger, and more common, so finding a speaker box or pod that fits the 6.5 is definitely easier. Still, I have the 5-1/4's and the smaller footprint will play to my advantage now, since the new location will be inside the cab, potentially near our knees.

Ever seeking cheap, yet effective, solutions, I constructed one. But, of course, not without checking out off-the-shelf options:

• There is a guy (Diablo Royale) on eBay who makes plastic speaker pods in Texas. I bought a pair of his mounting pods for Oliver so I could mount the front speakers down by our feet, against the outer walls (See MGB Interior Panels - Part 1 or better yet MGB Gets Sound - Part 1). Diablo Royale had pods that fit 5-1/4" speakers, but they were still open-backed, $50US per pair and at least 6 inches across at the top by 4 inches deep. The base was at least 7 inches across. Looking at the under-dash, that would have been pretty ugly. Without a flush backwall, which would be nearly impossible with the contours up there, the sound would not throw as well. To make them fully enclosed / flush, I would have to construct a rear side.
• There are MDF speaker boxes, wrapped in trunk carpet. These are also larger, but at least they have a back. The smallest ones I saw for the 5-1/4" round speaker were 8 inches square (or larger as rectangles) and 5 inches deep. If I had a parcel shelf, they might fit, but really only in the center since those parcel shelves get shallow as these near the door A-pillar.

better view of a
metal bracket attempt

Those are basically your off-the-shelf options. For the space we are targeting, they are not terribly good. So, we get out of the (speaker) box, and see what we can come up with. Our requirements are few: the speaker requires a 4-1/2" hole to sit into -and- it needs just under 2 inches (1-13/16 inches) from the mounting surface to the rear of the "box" for the cone and magnet.

It turns out that a 4" schedule 40 PVC pipe cap is a great starting point for a speaker pod. The one I found is 2 inches deep from lip to rear wall, but I saw deeper ones on the 'net. The inner diameter is 4-1/2 inches. I know; you're asking "but you said 4 inch cap". Yes, that's right. The schedule 40 4" cap refers to the industry standard 4" pipe, which is an approximation of the inner diameter of the pipe. Since the cap goes around the outside of that pipe, there is additional diameter to account for the thickness of a schedule 40 PVC pipe (here's a link for more dimensions). Neat, eh? Oh, and these are about 1/2 the price of the Diablo Royale pods at less than $15US each, made-in-USA, they are available at your local hardware store -and- they have a back wall.

5-1/4" Speaker to Cap

Once in hand, we need to figure out how to mount the speaker to it, and then how to mount the unit into the bus. I started with the second question first by moving the speakers around while playing the stereo. I concluded that the farther to the outside I could put the speaker, the better the overall sound. I resolved with placement directly below the dash vents. To mount, I bore a pair of holes through the cap, and mounted the cap/pod to the metal vent cover. Since the vent cover could be removed and replaced, I could use bolt/nut /washer fasteners instead of self-tapping or sheet metal screws. I think the nut-bolt combination creates a better, more reliable attachment.

plastic mounting tabs

For mounting the speaker to the cap/pod, I started with the smallest angle brackets I could find at the local Ace hardware store (3/4") when I got the caps. I also tried 1/2" brackets but they were no better. I probably could have super-glued something plastic, but that seemed flimsy. After a lot of drilling, cutting measuring and more cutting, I abandoned the 3/4" angles. I tried 1/2" angles, but they did not line up right with the speaker cover holes. I bought a set of angles online that had a channel, but even the smallest set like these were too large. I even tried constructing mounts with some scrap wood (1/2" wide and thick by 3/4" tall), but they were too bulky.

 

So, how did I resolve it? In true ghetto style, of course. While cleaning up my garage, I found a lid for one of those larger rectangular plastic storage tubs. The lip bent around 90* and extended about 3/4". With tin snips, I cut a series of pieces out, each about 1/2" wide and at least 1/2" into the top of the lid. This produced 8 little plastic "L" shapes to construct mounts out of. I marked and drilled holes, and then cut away the excess material with the snips. They are barely visible now, and once I wrap the pods with trunk carpet of some other fabric, they will mostly disappear.

 

5-1/4" Pod Wiring

With the physical mounting solved, I turned to wire routing. Ideally, I would have included a wiring cup. I omitted it because the flat bottom of the cap/pod will be pressed against the bus for mounting. Then, I thought about putting a cup on the side. I figured between the curvature and the shallow space within, it simply wouldn't work. So, instead, I drilled a small hole in the side of the cap/pod, and sent the pair of speaker wires through it. Leaving some slack in the wires within the cap/pod, I applied a blob of caulk into the hole to seal it back up.

Polyfill?

polyfill'd

My last step was adding some polyfill into the cap/pod. Simply, polyfill interrupts the sound wave moving on the back-side of the speaker when sound is produced by the cone. This interruption improves the projected sound out of the front of the speaker, and tricks the speaker into acting like it is in a larger enclosure: so, more bass. Using polyfill (or not) is kind of a religion with audio folks. I figure speaker enclosure manufacturers wouldn't use it if it didn't do something beneficial, and the 6x9 boxes I got for Hapy's rear speakers were polyfill'd. This cap/pod thing is super small for this speaker, so if it was going to do anything for a small speaker, this is the kind of scenario where it might. Still, the probability that I would really notice is virtually 0 (especially in the while-driving din), but I did it anyway. Ultimately, this cap/pod is about creating a safe means of mounting the speaker, with a hope that the sound is improved through it's proximity to the listener. The sound could not be measurably worse by moving it a foot closer in an enclosed cap/pod -versus- hanging in a loose, flapping door card down by your feet. Quite the opposite, I think it is much better. At least, it is set up to be.

isolation foam

When I get around to making the interior nicer with carpet and other fabrics, I will cover the cap/pods with whatever material I am otherwise using along that front wall so they visually disappear. Or, I'll simply cover them with trunk carpet. Before final assembly, I put some closed cell foam between the speaker cap/pod and the vent cover I mounted it to. This should help isolate the sound / vibrations a little bit. You can see the foam in the picture on the right as well as the markings I made to get the speaker aligned for drilling the mounting holes. Last, I simply plugged the wires into the speakers, set the speaker into the cap/pod, set the grill atop and attached it to the brackets. I took the assembly out to the bus and simply re-attached the vent covers with the speakers attached. The wires dangling from the cup/pods were tied into the existing front speaker wires that used to be in the doors, and then tucked away. I may apply a wire wrap to disguise them a little better, but I think they look good enough for now.

Testing

wired up and fired up

Because of my lack of a warm workspace where the bus fits, and a young puppy who can't be out in the cold for more than 15 minutes at a time, I still have not completed the install of the replacement seats. So, testing consisted of playing the stereo without moving the bus. Still, I think moving the 5-1/4" speakers made a difference. Considering that our legs no longer interrupt the sound waves, the speakers are about a foot closer to our ears, and the speakers are contained, there should be some benefit. Ultimately, I probably didn't need to move the 5-1/4's for sound improvement. It is absolutely possible that the open space behind the speaker in the door cavity actually helps the lower frequency sound form better. But, I didn't want to cut the new cards and this was kinda fun, and this was something I could mostly do in a warm garage, with a puppy underfoot.

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