Project 3 from agent4573 - Category - On Road Fabrication

[agent4573]

I have a few days off work so I decided to tackle some smaller projects around the house. One of them being installing new speakers into my commuter car. Stock size front and rear speakers are 4x6. I just happened to come into 2 sets of 6x9's and figured I could make em fit. The stock speakers are 30 years old, made of paper, and are cracked to all hell.

Here's the car: 1982 BMW 320i with 150k on it. Paid 600 for it, and had to put about 800 or 900 into it so far with a new starter, new tires, new cat and a few other fixes. It leaks and burns oil like its going out of style, but it keeps running.


Unaltered rear deck with an outline of where a 6x9 cutout needs to go.


After I cut out the first opening to fit the 6x9 I realized that the stock speaker area was too shallow and upon further inspection, I couldn't make it deeper without redoing the trunk springs and a whole bunch of other stuff. It was also a pain in the ### because working on the rear deck, you get almost no vertical room to get a drill or any other tool in there. So instead of drilling new holes, I came up with this idea. Weld in studs and mount the speakers on those. This let me space the speakers up about 1.5 inches and clear the shallow bottom.


Ground down attachment points.


At first I tried to tig weld these in, but with the limited amount of space and needing to hold the bolts in with one hand, it was really easier to break out the mig welder and just have at em with that. It also made me realize the benefits of having an autodarkening helmet. There wasn't enough space to get into position with it up, but I couldn't let go of the bolt to flip it down. Made a relatively easy job a pain in the butt. Guess I'll have to find an autodarkening helmet soon.


With the carpet back in place and the speaker installed.


Sounds much better. I know I'm losing some sound benefit by having some of the back of the speaker exposed, but it still sounds much better than the cracked paper speakers. For the fronts I think I'm just going to go buy the right sized speakers. There isn't nearly as much room to rig stuff up on the fronts.