Speakers that fit with no mod to factory housings, $30 a pair, and here’s how I did it (post now works!) Options

[Garland]

I wanted to set of speakers in the factory pods, without hacking anything up, hoping for a little better sound than the 50-year-old paper, torn speakers.



Omega 4 x 6 dual cone BU-46.7 my local speaker store says you can still order them, if they’re out of stock.



They look good except for the bright gold medal that will be seen through the grill



Also, they ride too high in the housing due to not clearing the factory mounts



I marked, the speaker where they need to be trimmed, and with some help from the clippers, done.



Now they clear the posts, and Mount flush.



Here’s the view from the front side, that doesn’t look that great



So after cleaning the metal well, so paint will adhere.

[technicalninja]

I used a slightly different approach to mounting some speakers in the original housings.

First off, I had ordered 914Rubber’s speaker pods, thinking I would use a pair of Rockford-Fosgate 5 1/2's that I already had from another project that didn’t work out.

Unfortunately, I was very disappointed when the speaker pods arrived to see how poor quality they were… Sorry 914Rubber guys, but the shiny, highly textured outer surface (Samsonite suitcase material) just does not do it for me; the indentations for the indicated hole placements are “somewhat approximate”. The pictures I saw before ordering don’t show that. Perhaps at some point I will try to clean them up, sand off the texture and repaint them with a matte, lightly textured finish, but that remains a project “for later”.

So, as my original housings are still in good shape and I just wanted to get some reasonable sound going in the car now, I decided to adapt a pair of 4x6’s. I settled on JBL Club 4622’s which were inexpensive (around $60) and available here quickly – the Infinity Kappas aren’t - but also because they had good CAD data available online so I could see how they would fit. Once mounted, they’re only about 1/4" deeper than the factory originals.



While it was possible to bolt them in directly diagonally, I didn’t like that solution having them just hanging in the air...



So I made my own custom adapter plates – laser cut MDF/painted black – and mounted them vertically solidly to the housings. Briefly, I took a quick iPhone photo of the inside plus some basic measurements, brought that into my CAD software and adjusted stuff so I had a perfect scale outline of the inside of the front surface. I then printed some paper templates and stuck them on some MDF and made a quick "proof-of-concept" mockup using band saw/drill press/sanding. I could have just made a second hand-built one for the other side, but being a nut for precision and having access to a laser cutter, I cut out new parts in 3mm MDF and glued them up, painted them black.













I’m quite happy with the result. The sound from the JBL's is clean and clear. Sure, there is no real bass from a pair of 4x6’s, but it’s not bad at all for a simple, clean sounding install for under $200 (including the Blaupunkt Nürnberg DAB+/Bluetooth radio, speakers, connectors, etc.) and a day or so of time invested. Have already ordered a Pioneer TS-WX010A compact subwoofer, which should actually fit inside the center console. The Blaupunkt works OK, install was a bit complicated (more on that later) my main complaint is that the Bluetooth doesn't automatically connect every time (like the Retrosound unit in my T-Bird does). I may look at other radio solutions at a later date.

Nicely done!

I haven't seen a cleaner install yet.

Having the 3D cad file would be a wonderful thing. My son is big with 3d printing (current job is at the largest titanium 3D printer on the planet).

Now for speakers I would rather have MDF as the substrate.
The way you did it looks best to me...

The 3d print stuff is just SO easy and we are talking about 4X6 speakers here.
I'm not sure how much better MDF is over plastic on such a small speaker.
Probably cannot hear the difference...